She rang me in the middle of the night, speech slightly slurred,

scurried, slow drawled, concerned and with heavy patience address.

“I worry about you, I believe you will write yourself to death

one dank and dark December day.”

The hint of concern overflowing and verging on future grief

overwhelmed me briefly and

I paused for thought, after all the hour had not long since departed

three, half a pall bearing team I thought wildly with a wry grin,

I wonder where the other half went, perhaps to make sandwiches, after all

it’s damned hard work burying someone who isn’t dead yet.

 

I could write my own obituary whilst I have time my dear old friend,

I finally replied. After all, who wants to end up in the dispatch column

with someone else’s echoes etched between a one inch gap

and restricted to less than 100 words lest the cost goes up.

Death by Quill, perhaps too 18^th Century and after all

I could never match Byron or Shelley for their sheer audacity.

Nibbed to expiry, typed his last, much more up to date,

inked his last breath,

The termination of the last joyful sentence,

the finishing line with no Time

for a final paused

comma.

The pencil will no longer be sharpened in frustrated agony,

the casual casualty,

the unseen bystander in a lap-top drive by shooting,

the agony of clutching at untrained thoughts, murdered by his own

inadequate ideas, at the end, his heart gave up

because the letter e refused to be and only was pleased not to be

for that is th. qu.stion.

 

I heard nothing down the phone,

where once was wires in which to tangle and twist as silence fell,

now there is only air in which to fill.

I asked tentatively if she was still there.

Fearing I had taken the conversational

point too far.  Finally words were heard,

“I also want to talk to you about your sanity my dear pal, I’m coming over,

unless of course my understanding of your departed

common sense is also up for a bit of word play for your obituary.”

 

Ian D. Hall 2015