Poetry Bus - inspired by a pub

This week Poetikat's instruction, as bus driver extraordinaire, was to take the name of a pub and write a witty and fun poem inspired by the title. Click here for the rest of the passengers.

I chose Nancy Spains in Cork, my fondest memory of pub life going back to the days of the late 90's spent there, a pub whose front was interestingly blackened and "distressed" in order to allow it to be part of the film "Angela's Ashes" and whose back side was burnt to the ground some years later.

So anyway, many's the happy (drunken) Sunday evening we passed there, and it's the only pub I was ever barred from, and it's also the only pub I ever sent a postcard to (not at the same time) - and the toilet doors were always well worth a read.

I decided to do some research - in order to write this hilarious witty poem. I knew the name was after a song... I've just found out however, that the song is classed as describing an emotional state known in Portugese and Galician as Saudade

"a somewhat melancholic feeling of incompleteness. It is related to think back situations of privation due to the absence of someone or something, to move away from a place or thing, or to the absence of a set of particular and desirable experiences and pleasures once lived"

Pretty sad right? I'm not sure I can write something that'll have ye on the floor laughing having just discovered this, so here goes something:

Nancy's

We had a complicated relationship

You saw me go from west coast coolers

to big bottles of cider

that'd tear the insides

if they weren't so tough

I fell off your tables

people fell onto me

friendships made in the haze

mice ran up the walls

and you played the best music

there'd be cartoons on

and a fire going

and every table held a spinning wheel

trees held the place up

and strangers made eyes

On my 21st birthday

Dad bought 90p pints*

for everyone in the snug at the back

my brother surprise tripped

home from US talking of new love

a girl now his wife

I daren't go back to you

for oh, how you've changed

and me, insides softened

- blurred memories stay

* the 90p pints were part of a beat the clock promotion - ie they were 90p till 8pm, then 1 pound till 9pm and then up to normal price, in case ye thought I was ancient or anything, cos I'm really not that ancient.