‘Charlie Goes To Town’
© Joe Canning 2017. All Rights Reserved.

Now here’s a little tale of Uncle Charlie.
He likes a small libation now and then.
So now and then he heads for Dicey Reilly’s,
With his paper and his crossword and his pen.
He sits there in the place called ‘liars corner’,
With his porter and a whiskey in his jar,
And nine times out of ten he over does it
And so when he goes home it’s all out war.

I remember once he told his ‘darling Mary’
“I think I’ll fetch the priest and take the pledge”,
But Charlie he went missing two days later,
‘Til Mary found him ‘neath the garden hedge.
She said, “Charlie boy! you’ll never get to heaven”
She could smell the scent of Guinness on the breeze,
And Charlie he was muttering, “Ah sure Mary,
It’s the weakness of the simple man in me”.

Charlie was the divvil with the drink in,
And the divvil couldn’t keep him from the bar,
And Charlie never learned to ride a bicycle
And thank God he never learned to drive a car.
But here’s the funny part of my short story,
It’s what happened Charlie late last Friday night,
A taxi driver found him on the pavement,
He was singing “Help me make it through the night”

The kindly driver he detected raindrops,
And thought “I cannot leave him lying there”,
So he placed him in the back seat of the taxi,
And asked him if his house was somewhere near.
He found ID in uncle Charlie’s pocket,
And took him safely home to sixty five,
He dragged him to the front door in a hurry,
For Charlie he had warned him of his wife.

He took the front door keys from Charlie’s pocket,
And quietly placed him just inside the door.
And as he left to carry out his duties,
He saw the hallway light and heard the roar,
Mary came downstairs and found our Charlie,
With a flowerpot on his head and legs in air
She said; “you must be getting better Charlie,
For you managed to get home without your chair”.

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