Dead Man Talking

Heard an incredibly depressing interview on my drive to work this morning, in the grim wet gloom two days before Christmas.
Totally bummed me out, so I've squeezed it all out of me and onto paper. Keyboard. Screen. Whatever.


I listened to death today.

Not Death with a capital D.

No dour Discworld reaper,

nor gamine Gaiman goth girl, no;

I listened to a dying man,

who exuded his oncoming death

with each emphysemic, leukemic breath.                          

For half an hour in my car

I listened to him breathe his death

on Start The Week with Andrew Marr.

A man so near the end

you could feel the mortality

seeping out of the radio.

Blanketing me in the bleakness

the blackness

the sadness

of his poetry.

You're not dead yet Clive,

but I'm mourning you now

and thinking back

to the funny fat-faced man on the telly

saying 'Meanwhile, on Endurance…'

and showing us clips

of silly people from around the World,

and writing what is was like

falling towards England

with only a cardboard suitcase,

a Singapore suit

and mushy slushy Chelsea boots.


Normal light-hearted hijinks will resume in due course.