“The spirits must raise, maintain and break themselves. You’d be carved up in here. Daggers from all sides.”

A few months ago, we premiered ‘Julie Christie’, the debut release from a time travelling musical ghost who calls himself ‘pillowman’.

And almost as soon as he entered our world, he faded back to the parallel session gaff on Meath Street where he ‘lives’ alongside the ghosts of Flann O’Brien and Ray Carver.

Anyway, last weekend I found myself in the depths of another late night after session, filled to the brim with Spuds and Meltys. Standing knee deep in nettles at the back of the house as the sun began to rise, pillowman reappeared beside me.

I remember almost nothing we spoke about, except for the moment he told me I’d forget, and handed me a note on a piece of paper that he hoped would help me remember.

A new song, ‘Hope’, that was it. So here it is, the premiere of pillowman’s second release, as beautiful a track as I could have expected from him. Check out the contents of the note he handed me below too… And I’d almost forgotten about the times this enigmatic spirit has spent with some of the finest writers in history. Enjoy!

Carver on the couch with the Cavé. Bukeepsie up the walls. Flann on the rampage, claiming he is the prince of lushdom and heir to all the trees in the juniper forest. The spirits must raise, maintain and break themselves. You’d be carved up in here. Daggers from all sides. Cut for the sweet drop of the Christblood that would be in it. A Eucharistic position to be sure.

Need to leave. Relief. Release. O I’m no escapist but I know a little corner of the cell my captors overlook. And a little crack in the wall that lets in summer’s divine light. Softboy on his feet through the tragic debris of over session to venture into the big beautiful world. Scaling the bookshelves, tossing Baudelaire and Bradbury until Brautigan is located. Sister sorrow in this alphabetised abbey. Its all trout and no geese though. One can never rely on obscurity.

Quick glance back to the alcove of alcos. Slurred lines will soon be shook and the delirium tremens’ cold draught will engulf the gaff. Look past this bleak mid morning for the determination to leave leave leave. Maybe it’s in my other coat. I will not be locked in with the locked. I would rather die by the sea than live by the bottle. A delicate finger caresses the recently called, boys F and A reached, instructed, bring the lawn and be quick about it, lest I be mistaken for cream and become one with the breakfast liqueur. When the going gets hard the soft go into liquidation.

Bukeepsie sweeps the streets so subtlety, seen only by those with eyes that look beyond the grey of the Pale to the deep deep blue of the Celtic kingdom. Some call her green but I know what she really looks like. A slight prayer whispered from the candles of Clarendon Street to the pews of Saint Patrick’s. O for the comfort and the solace and a hand on a bare arse, that all good souls may find themselves nestled in the ecstasy of contentment.

Up this debonair Dawson with dreams of Anais and Julie. I kept Helen company on the way to war. Cleopatra let her empire crumble beneath us. A mosaic of memory. But for now to South William’s shores where boy E is sure to save us all with the jittery injection. Atlas takes a corner table and the weight off and waits for the sign from God who sits three tables down, scrolling this week’s playlist on a stone tablet. It’s important to have faith in these times of uncertainty. Like the rapture, boys F and A arrive and behind them, unbeknownst, a perfect vision of fate who’s name I can only guess is Not A Chance.

The boys with the tiny talk, unfit for the naked eye, Bukeepsie peering past with his own trained diligently not on but in the vicinity of Not A Chance. The ability to be seen is a skill few possess in this ubiquitous age. And not on is line drawn finely by the quill of mutual desire. Her hair flows fast and ungraciously, the unsteady pour of an untrained sommelier. Her smile is over before it starts, the vibe is gloom with a suggestion of doom were one to be dealt the right hand.

Softboy visible only to those with a surreptitious gaze and I think I might have caught yours sideways. The mosaic of memory cracks, devalued rapidly. Send it to a collector, display it behind glass in the National Museum of Ireland. There is a muse in every cafe and a cafe in every muse. Would you like to come to the aqua dome with me? Will you change your name to Optimism and then perhaps to Happiness? I wonder has she been to Byzantium. The boys produce their daggers. I am a moth, a flea and a caterpillar but

Some day
Hope will kick
Open the cocoon
Of longing.