Wednesday 28 November 2012

John O'Keeffe: The Hornpipe

Did you ever watch the news
and wonder what you're missing,
what the real story is behind it all?
Well sit down in your pews
and prepare for hours of listening
to the sermon from book one of Berlin's famous wall.

No matter what the topic
of the night's discussion:
Poverty in Africa or the curlew's mating call:
John O'Keeffe won't mock it,
but he'll mention its relation
to his part in the bringing down of the Berlin wall.

He undercover ran with a mob of plenty
through the streets of Berlin West,
commis one and all.
Years before his time (was he even twenty?)
I'm sure you've nearly guessed -
he brought down the Berlin wall.

Forgotten by historians,
and by most of his relations,
he relies on storytelling for his glory to recall.
Unlucky for our hero the only public recitations
are given by himself,
so we will know about it all.

(Explanation: My uncle, John O'Keeffe, has told us the story of his part in the fall of the Berlin Wall a million times. For all of our mocking it is a great story and he is great at telling it. I wrote this in December 2005. It is written in hornpipe time.
Inspired by: My uncle, John O'Keeffe)

Monday 5 November 2012

Home Help Yourself

Well of course the majority of clients claimed the service is great, they’re well fed...
Of course they did, why wouldn’t they? They’re not the ones who are dead.
They’re not the ones who can’t complain, they’re not the ones who can’t eat.
And what of the ones who waited in vain for their two veg. and their meat?
Why didn’t the home help come with a meal prepared and cooked?
Maybe the agency thought that these ones were the dead on their books.
I work for free in my home, 24 hours a day. I have to balance the tiniest budget without any breaks or sick-pay.
Private sector employees who struggle for minimum wage in their pocket
don’t get to lie, scheme or juggle and then claim they’re a not-for-profit.
A confidential investigation? Why not just call the guards?
Why send a nurse on this mission, shouldn’t she be working the wards?
Yet more of the same from this Irish isle: Save the banks, save all of the crooks,
save these grave-robbers and all of their kind while we pay to examine their books.

It makes me wonder, meals for the dead.
HSE blunders, their claims of no beds.
Could it simply be that they don’t know the amount
because the investigating nurse is the one who can count?

(Explanation: The HSE has carried out two confidential investigations into not-for-profit organisations. This particular case involved a home help agency that received €1.7m from the HSE to match the amount of people it claimed to be serving, including the dead ones.