Tom Cunningham Poems

They that go down to sea in ships, that do business in great waters:

These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.
...

It was in late October in the year nineteen seventy three
That the war in South Vietnam was finally over for me
I boarded the seven o seven and couldn't wait to get going
A non military plane, a bright blue and white coloured Boeing.
...

(Inspired by the 1943 classic western, The Oxbow Incident which stared Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews and Anthony Quinn. It followed a posse who set out to seek vengeance for the murder of a rancher, as the movie progressed the posse became a lynch mob taking the law into their own hands with harrowing consequences.)


THE BODIE LYNCHINGS.
...

I lay awake in that dark hour and was reflecting on my life
From all the travelling I had done to the breakup with my wife
I was an architectural painter and was very successful too
And after leaving Oxford University that's what I'd wanted to do.
...

Ol' Nellie Bramble; she loved to drink
She never washed and boy she did stink
In every bar in town, she'd cause a scene
And her rich language was quite obscene.
...

The parade is marching to the beat of the drum
With the skirl of the pipes with their distinctive hum
Everywhere you look there's bright shades of green
It's the day of the year, that the Irish love to be seen.
...