POGUEMAHONE

But, anyway,

where was I

yes, the pub up in London

The Bedford Arms

wasn’t I telling you

where, to my surprise,

on my recent journey

up Killiburn way

instead of Paddy Conway

who did I discover

standing there in behind

the counter

only this brand-new Nigerian barman

who you wouldn’t have

expected, in a million years.

to know the slightest little bit

about

cluricauns or

leprechauns

or anything to do

with the old tales and stories

of Currabawn,

or, for that matter, Ireland-

but, as I was soon to discover,

in fact, there was very little

that he didn’t know

about the subject

everything, indeed,

to do with them

making these precise little sketches

on a beermat with the sharpened point

of a pencil

as the pair of us

sat there

chatting away

this is what he looks

like, he said,

what would be

our equivalent in Nigeria.

‘There are those who would insist

Mr Exu is the devil’, he told me,

‘but that is not true, because mostly

he is a person like us. You will

see, for example, that he does not have

horns.

Indeed his principal symbol, his

one essential and necessary attribute

being the erect phallus

which is, of course, the sign of life

& constant vitality

that makes Exu the embodiment of

energy, of axe.’

With him sliding the

drawing across the counter

as he gave me a smile

& I had to laugh

when I saw this

particular detail that he’d

pencilled in

namely a great big loorpan of

an extended, anglewise prick

which looked so funny

set against the tall grinning

figure’s flaring swallowtail

coat.

Yes, Mr Exu!, he laughed,

that’s what they call

him in the little village I come from

in Africa

in the place where I was born,

that devious mythical trickster,

poet of melancholy,

weird user of words

watching them tumble wild in his head

as they take his fancy,

one minute there smiling

without so much as a care

in the world

& then the next thing you know

the world framed in the living

pearl of his eye

where you see yourself standing

looking back out at yourself

for he brings them free as any

bird of the air

every single story as ever there was

slipping with ease across

the frontiers of language

whether blackbird

or robin

perhaps even creatures that cannot be named

or seen

he is the one

who comes for us when its time

whether it be the thirties

or the forties

or the seventies

the one that in your culture

you tell me is called

the gruagach.

No, you genuinely

wouldn’t have expected

a twenty-four year old African barman

to know the first thing about

any of that

all that ancient old folklore stuff

the very same

as Auntie Nano used to love

to tell us all about

when we were small

the fairy Shee and

the magic of the hawthorn

yes, ghosts and all the rest of

that type of thing.

But that is exactly what he drew

the one and only Mr Exu.

& who, I have to say,

with that smashing great ponytail

& high-polished white loafers,

really did cut the most handsome

& dashing figure all told,

especially with that neat little

tranca

a twirly wee braid curling elegantly

backward

more commonly found, or so my

Nigerian friend informed me,

in the carved Yoruba images of Eshu.

But anyhow, back to London

and the old times and the way

that, in modern days, things

would appear to have gone.

It’s difficult to credit the extent to which

‘Auld Killiburn’, as they used to call it,

how it has transformed over the years.

With very few of the old-stagers in evidence now

&

the few that are in a sorry-looking state

exhibiting no end of strokes & limps

& the Lord knows what.

But I’m still very glad I took the trouble

to make the trip.