A handful of gargoyles on a wall

Is all that remains of the abbey

Dedicated to St Phocas of Sinope

Who’s long forgotten

Overlooking the bay at Aughnabrochan

 

And when it rains the leaking spouts drip

And splashed heads look up

And picture the abbey in its heyday

And wonder about St Phocas

And hope the crumbling gargoyles

Won’t dislodge and pulp their skulls.

 

The gardens of the abbey

Drew families from Kerry

On horse-drawn charabanc outings

At Eastertide or Lughnasa

Until Epiphany - January 1839

When the 'big wind' himself 

Of the ‘Night of the Big Wind’

Blew down the old building

And washed away monks at pray

And winter sleeping gardens 

 

From behind the high dry-stone wall

Keeping Atlantic tides at bay

A handful of youths with gaping mouths

Admired Jodie’s breast-stroke

In half a polka dot bikini

 

The skimpy top abandoned on the sand

 

Wanting to give the lads a treat

They dare not tell their mothers

Nor their dads about

I held the polka dot top aloft

And quieted their sniggering

By signalling for silence.

 

As Jodie stepped from the waves

Her water-weighted bikini bottom

Slipped ankle-bound.

 

A cathedral hush settled over the cove

As, statuesque, she stretched

To sunbathe naked on the strand.

 

And from behind the wall

The rasp of unzipped flies

Urgent hands and dripping spouts.