Harry Clifton, "A Spider Dance on the Bahnhofstrasse" (1995)

Note: This poem is also included in the Switzerland in Irish Poetry project.

• The notion that the "indestructible bourgeois class" has won references the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1991.
• The "Spider Dance" of the title refers to "a wilde caper enhanced in its comedic effect by wild contortions," performed by James Joyce to amuse and/or embarrass his friends (Bowker 234; see also Fischer 85-86).
• "Flunthorn" is usually spelled differently ("Fluntern") - but rather than seeing this as a simple mistake, it can instead be regarded as a sort of homage to James Joyce's love for word creation (e.g. "gracehoppers," in Finnegans Wake).