I didn’t set out to write poetry in fact I don’t think I’m any good at it but to be honest it takes less time than the marathon harrowing efforts I enjoy subjecting myself to writing and others to reading.

Reading The Unnamable and ten pages in I am glorying in its black humour and depressive recuperative effects. I know why I didn’t get this ten years ago. I do now well.
I can see myself nursing-homed-alone surrounded foggily by people I neither know nor care about.
They will refer to me as an Unnamable oul fucker disclaimed by sons and daughters alike. Maybe they will visit betimes and I’ll pretend not to know them lest they accuse me of barbarianisms, caustic comments and worse.
Or perhaps I genuinely won’t know them, shadows flitting about asking questions. Has he eaten? What about his piles are they bothering him? And the other problems galore. How long have you got. Well longer than you think. I could live well into my hundreds if the scientists keep at it. Imagine. Old and alone till an octogenarian son or daughter comes to visit. Father and child fighting over the same reality. Except they will win.
And I will say remember the time you were in the Christmas play but it will pass unheard and unanswered. Maybe I could put on a P2 nativity play in there for aged oul decrepits like yours truly. A children’s drama enacted by elderly children. Be ok til someone fluffs their lines or wanders off. But, why change the habit of a lifetime. Hopefully by then it will be foggy and grey and of course they will put it down to age. That will suit me just fine.