Apple of Weeping Eyes.
Down beside the dark, deep water
just beyond old Kavanagh’s seat,
walks a mother’s wayward daughter,
heels click-clacking towards her beat.
Her last trick had only bought her
enough to keep just this night sweet
and the respite, she had fought for
would soon end with whom she’d meet.
For the dragon, that had caught her,
while she chased its foil-run heat,
had inexorably brought her
to this dappled, leaf-shade street
and the twisted mind that stalked her,
stole the traces of her feet
’til the act for which he’d sought her
left her dying at his feet.
Just a girl, like any other;
the apple of wet, weeping eyes.
bejewelled child to some poor mother,
now left wailing to the skies.
Her bright dreams had all been smothered
under opiated highs,
gifts, at first, from wasted lovers,
with addictions ill-disguised.
But the pain that must have shoved her
down this pathway, she despised,
we must not leave undiscovered,
while we preach and moralise.
Her sad death has brought a shudder
to so many cosy lives,
now my fears are for the others,
prey to after midnight knives.
© BRENDAN HICKEY 1998