OCCUPIED COUNTRY

Poems


l

Me Mam's going gently into that good night

She's not raging against the dying of the light

She's lost the power of speech

She's lost the will to fight

Me Mam's going gently into that good night

ll

Me Mam's going gently into the undiscovered country

From whose bourn no traveller returns

Or acquires wings or burns in Hell

Who's to tell if this puzzles her will

Or lies unremarked in a battered corner

Of her Alzheimered mind

Where it's nigh on closing time

lll

Me Mam's climbing gently into Charon's ferry

She will be burnt

She won't be buried

Ashes to ashes in Hollinwood Crem

Harold P Heywood  keeping the helm

With a rain-soaked phalanx

Of women and men

Who couldn't put me Mam back together again

lV

Me Mam's quietly joining the choir eternal

Focussed on closing the Boethian circle

Drawing the curtains

Damping the fire

Pulling the plug

Soon to expire

V

Me Mam's going gently we know not where

Where paupers and millionaires go: nowhere

Dust and dust and yet more dust

An afterlife? We surely must  look at our offspring and trust

Our loins did well

Here's to lust.

Marion Garry 29 May 1933 - 12 Apr 2017

In A Considered Attempt

In a considered attempt

Not to fall, teetering and swaying

And bang his head as he pulled on his pants

He decided to sit on the edge of the bed

But missed

And fell

And banged his head

In Loving Memory

I'm a bench on a pier now or

Somewhere 'nice' with 'views'

That's what I've become

There's nothing left of me

Apart from two Sons and theirs

And memories in the heads of friends who

Will soon be benches too

Tempus Fugit