Belated St. Paddy's Day Poem

My annual Paddy's day poems are not getting any better but they are getting shorter... for that readers can be thankful.

Joe Kiernan

Defending the Irish

This Paddy'’s Day please honor my special wish

Whether you’re Polish, Eye Talian or Eye Rish

This year there's one gift I would seriously like

Spare me those old jokes about Pat and Mike

Don’t tell me the story about the widow Finnegan

After her old man downed in the brewery vat again

Please no more cracks about Michael O’'Connor

In court saying, “No more booze for me, your honor”

Or that scatterbrained lad, one Michael Hooligan

Who made a complete ass of himself at the pub again

Poor Seamus on death bed smelled cookies and spake:

“Can I have just one?” Heard, “No they'’re for the wake”

No more tales about the cop and the tipsy priest

Of all stories from old Erin, all those are the least.

Scrap the old Irish joke book; it is drivel and bunk

We'’re not scoundrels in private nor publicly drunk.

Hey, the Irish aren’t fools and not really that funny

You make too much fun of my crowd there, Sonny

Be not shamefully slanderous against people most gentle

We have physical conditions but none that are mental

So get better material, I am warning you, Dude

Cause the Sons of St. Patrick are charming, not rude

My claims and defenses here ain’t theoretical

Our women are lookers and our booze strictly medical

Cease the rumors about the bishop and the organist then

Their lives are their own and they'’re both fine men

Those old jokes ain't authentic; they’re beginning to grate

And while we are at it, let’s get Irish history straight

As to the yarn of St. Patrick, there were no damn snakes

Those chased from the Emerald Isle were Brits for God’s sakes!

So may the road come up to meet you, not hit you in the mush

And may that wind not be your own - - the one behind your tush.

JRK March 2010