Beaten by life

I had a friend who was beaten by life.  A keen poet once, by no means a great poet, but most extraordinarly honest and brave; think of a gay man publishing poetry that expressed his sexuality without inhbition in the Ireland of fifty years ago.

My poem refers to this man disapointed and despondent in his later years; fight and spirit gone, he was good company, but  kept all that he had been locked tight deep inside himself.

The Poems Are Past.

The poems are past;

goodnight, au revoir.

And life, handed over like a cheque;

good luck, all the best.

Still: an adjective for a man ?

Still ?

Think of rain, bucketing down,

sunshine caught in its strings;

that's how I think of you:

a rainstorm in June; gentle subversive .

Yesterday

Almost a year to the day since I visited Pearse Hutchinson in St James Hospital and found him in great form. He talked  about a nurse he met on his ward; I said he should write the poem; he said he was old and needed to rest that I should  write it.That was our last conversation.

Yesterday

 

A poem

you said I should write. 

An African nurse on your ward,

born the day after her  grandmother died,

called Yesterday. 

She was gone as soon,

nurses from the agency come and go;

good relationships are important

for the patients, you explained. 

And now you are gone;

is this that poem?