these few pieces were writ before stroke to show how my words have changed

 A COLD SON OF A BITCH

                                                        ‘yet why not say what happened’

                                                                                          Robert Lowell

John looked from the kitchen window, the sink he stood by was like the interior of a

Well-worn teapot or the inside of his lungs sucking on yet another cigarette.

The street light threw a subtle pastel glow on the still housing estate, the red rusted

Volkswagen beetle stood like a monument to his life, ‘I’ll have to get

stuck in and fix that car tomorrow’.  He dropped a sleeping pill and rinsed it down

with a cold swig of tea and ‘I’ll have to clean this place’ he told himself

climbing the stairs.  He dreamed the usual sixty-year-old dream of young ladies

running naked through summer meadows.  When he woke it was those abstract

images of memory that disturbed him and lingered like a blunt saw through his aching

heart.  It’s a suffering fucking hell he said, throwing cold water over his face

as if extinguishing the image in the mirror and the reality of his bald head and pointed

features.   The stench of his loss lingered with every step he took down those steps

where once walked the wife and mother of his dreams.  He could almost see her

walking down those stairs to meet the day with that Irish strength that pushed the sore

reality to the ground.  

 

He ejected the stale teabags from the teapot he thought I have to go, doctors, today 

and get that disability living allowance form filled in and get a mobility allowance 

and have a new car instead of that almost unrepairable rusted old banger.  

He remembered how the car looked in the nights subtle pastel glow, and 

said god you’re a bastard you and your cold light of morning.

He sat in the doctors waiting room trying to remember good times like his firstborn or 

his wedding day but this annoying ugly kid kept shoving leaflets in his face about cancer 

of the bollox and depression.  Just as he was about to smack the kid up the head 

he heard the broken English voice of the Pakistani doctor call his name on the tannoy like 

a conductor on a bus.  As the doctor filled in a section of the Disability living 

allowance form and wrote some prescriptions for depression angina headaches 

and the general feeling that life is a sick load of balls. John was calling him a black 

bastard in his mind because he asked him to exaggerate his findings and received instead

a lecture on the ethics of medicine.  John was a bigot he didn’t know how to be

anything else, he hated blacks, Pakis, Chinese as well as all those beautiful

women he could not have and especially that bitch that left him after thirty-one years 

and six children.  He walked home through the maze of housing estates with his bag

of pills for every ill but the aching black hole in his heart.  Going past the derelict

houses full of graffiti he remembered the night the policeman called.

The shadow of the black cap was cast off and fell through the hall like the black cloud of

Depression, ‘your daughters have been searching for you’ screeched, crashing with a

families’ laughter.  Those words rang through his mind like the word bastard the winds

of a harsh winter reminding him that life can be a cold son of a bitch.  He passed the

old decrepit beetle without an engine without much hope of ever pumping fluid

through its rotten pipes.  He opened the front door and half expected his wife to pass

him and his children playing music and busying around the house, instead, he was met

by the grey stench of loneliness.  He stood by the sink steadying himself as those

words pounded through his head he washed down paracetamol and an anti-depressant.

His head pounded filled with anxiety he staggered into the living room and threw

himself on the sofa putting his feet up on the coffee table between the carburettor.

And the innards of a TV he was trying to fix.  He then stood up over the hearth and

placed a little blue tablet below his tongue and his heart rate began to fall and he was

able to catch his breath and relax.  He climbed the stairs and threw himself on the

single bed this is my bed I must lie in it he told himself and looked through the ceiling

through the grey sky through the galaxy of stars burning in the darkness of his sight

crumpled up into a little boy.  I’m a loser he told himself remembering but not remembering

an infant left in a basket by a blood-red door, doing time in Crumlin Road jail, the longest detainee in 

Ireland, those nine months were hell, a single droplet of salted tear fell from his hardened Belfast 

exterior he brushed it aside like the murdering bullet from an Armalite rifle, no point crying 

over spilt milk, he lay there and cried himself to sleep.  He woke with the

hope of a thirty-year-old man he debt, he bounded out of bed to tackle the unbeatable

day, ‘you can’t beat a good cry, he told himself throwing water about his worn

features.   He brushed the hair from the nape of his neck to cover his bald patch and

brought it to a point on his forehead.  He sang walking down the stairs a song he sang

to his children when they cried, ‘you don’t have to be a baaa aaby to cry’.

Opening a cupboard in the hall he dragged a filthy pair of overalls from a pile of

clothes on the floor and stepped into them tucked his hair into a tweed cap and lifted

the toolbox.  The morning was a little cool but the sun was coming up strong above

the grey housing estate, ‘this is going to be a good day, he thought sucking in the

almost fresh air.  Opening the passenger door of the car creaking like a great sigh

reaching in he delved between unsecured seating busted wings and an exhaust

hauling a jack from the debris.  He took the cross-shaped wheel brace and placed it on

one of the four nuts, before taking hold he stooped and spat on his hands taking hold

he gripped the brace and turned with all his might and tried to budge the nut as if it

was his last task on earth?  He cursed the car and gave it everything he had, all a sixty

year-old worn heart could muster.  A heart like a prune without syrup dried and left in

the searing desert of hurt too long,’ ya red bastard, ya German fucker, ya useless heap

of shit, he mumbled as the sweat broke on his brow.  He rested awhile leaning

against his dream and took a cigarette from his top pocket lit and sucked, he licked the 

beads of sweat that fell across his lips he ran his tongue across his lips once more they

were cold and grey he licked once more unsure and tasted death.

On the morning of his funeral, a letter drifted through the letterbox, one of his pal-

bearing four sons opened it and it read, we are pleased to inform you that you have

been awarded Motability.

 BASED ON JOSEPH BRODSKY'S ELEGY FOR JOHN DONNE

ELEGY FOR RAYMOND CARVER 

 

Raymond Carver has sunk in sleep...All things beside 

Are sleeping too: The brass swan paperweight sleeps 

On Hebrew translations, Butts in the ashtray sleep with 

Ash, Chekhov, the lapdog and the wicker chair sleep 

In the intricate weave of willow-like the exiled words of 

Joseph Brodsky. Tess sleeps in a bed of hummingbirds 

The photographs and the pins that hold them sleep in 

The cork they penetrate. His unpublished words sleep 

Piled high in the bunks of America. Belfast and Sligo 

Sleep even the doctor sleeps in a handshake of blue 

Sea and sails.