Middlemarch

Last Friday, in Middlemarch, they put Peter McElhinney in the ground.

It was a big do,

in the Strath Taieri War Memorial Hall they gathered from 10 o’clock on

After the lambing beat.  Big men stood together outside,

Arms knotted, clenched fists white with grief, or the cold.

In elastic-sided boots they talked about the weather

And looked past each other at the huge blue Maniatoto sky.

Inside they set up a trestle table for the coffin and lined it up

With the red duct-taped lines of the badminton court and lit the pot-belly

With macrocarpa, that bled black smoke through the lid, like it always did (until

It got going )..

And his niece served up “Amazing Grace” from the base-line

In a suitable vibrato. Then they took him and put him back in the ground

That his parents had raised him on 67 years ago and that he had worked ever since.

And his sister, the singer’s mother, did sausage rolls.

Astral Travel

(Thoughts on my mother in advancing senile dementia, aged 87 years.)

Astral Travel.

My mother has been taken by aliens , at least, thats what i suspect.

She thinks they must be coming at night

Something has stayed on in her place. They must think she wont notice if the do it gradually

Twisted , stretched and tucked into her translucent, parchment skin ..she thinks it sticks out like dog-balls

She says herself she doesn’ t feel herself. 

You can tell by the nostrils; huge shafts of darkness going

up into where they’ve been getting in and out.

And the way she picks herself with chipped, yellow-ridged nails 

Tells me that she’s isn’t comfortable  in there.

And it eats..heaps,.. everything it sees, with no sign  

of recognition or gratitude, let alone enjoyment.

As if it  has to store energy, gather strength for a journey. Powered by toast and jam.

I think, looking back, that my mum had been packing for this  

trip for ages.

She must have known. I wish she’d said.

I hope, wherever she is, whenever she gets there that she enjoys the trip.

Urology Outpatients

UROLOGY OPD: SIX WEEKS POST RADICAL PROSTATECTOMY..

A Day in the Life.

I sat alone, a lonely drone;  Nurses , authority assured by masks of peppermint- green tissue paper,   bustled in and out .

At the portal, through which I will eventually be summoned there is a ribbon of lights scrolling in  sputum-green lettering “Every cigarette shortens your life…”..

 And somebody spoke and I went into a dream …

 I heard my name, with a sting of shame,

I realized I’d been staring.

Her eyes implied that I’d been spied, (another old man leering)

She led me through a swinging door

“Mr Knob will be here shortly,

I think you’ve seen him once before.

Looks Like Gollum, but more portly”.

I sensed the ice begin to thaw. I sensed

A presence at the door.

A little warty man strode in,

A shaving-cut adorned his chin.

 His tie showed signs of old rolled oats

He glared at me and thumbed my notes.

“It’s all good today” he said.

 “It won’t grow back before you’re dead,

at least, I’d say that’s my prediction,..the usual course of this affliction.

And then he was gone.

.

From there the story takes a swerve, it seems my plight had struck a nerve.

The angry nurse, by no means glamourous, abruptly changed and became quite amorous.

She turned and bent down to the fridge, a whiff of sardines filled the air.

She found a gladwrap covered plate while I endeavoured not to stare.

She‘d noticed that I looked dishevelled.

“There’s last night’s steak and kidney, (devilled)”

I’ll swear that cat began to purr.

 I stammered, . “Ma’am, I must demur,

You can’t have read my notes right through,

There’s really nothing I can do..

I’m doomed to live a life less rigid.”

My prostate’s  gone and left me frigid

( I may be a retired doc. ..but there’s no cure for a flaccid member, …

at least not one that I remember) 

I woke up then..with a yawn,(…or  a scream?)

It was just another lurid dream.

My sleep has not been at its best

…. Gabapentin does the rest

Reflections on the passing of a Pope

My wife is laying out her medals on the bed,

Omens and talismen, plastic rosaries her grandfather gave her,

To hurry the Holy Father on his fog-choked ferry ride

Across the Styx;  God speed. Life jacket is optional

He seemed reluctant, like a man determined to repeat, rather than repent for,

History.

Considering he’d have preferential entry,

 Nothing to Declare..Elbowing ahead of foetuses and freedom fighters and

Poor Mrs Schiavo, (whose brain vacated years before the rest of her was

ready to go  so she left in eternal detention thinking  nothing in particular.

As he enters the Dead Popes Society, will he embrace them as equals,

The married and the venal. Or will he cut them dead?

(Should he set up house..with that other recent arrival, Mother Theresa?..,…(Or will she remain faithful to that  chisel-chinned, wooden- hearted Man , left hanging by the  Romans; punished for being annoying)

 Meanwhile millions mourn, ogling what’s left, marvelling

At how well he looks.

He’s armed with a candle,  a light-sword against a satanic Darth Vader. Will he look back?

(I heard 100,000 men-priests left the church during his reign… unable to balance their hearts with their hormones)

Anyway he’s gone. There will be black smoke soon

From the Holy City’s chimney… And maybe he’ll come back

As someone sane or black . Or both.

* Mrs. Schiavo, a woman who for many years was denied the right to end her life even though she was in a vegetative state since the age of 25.