Category: Death

He came into our lives the year The Beatles took America
in the coolest symbol of that cool era
a yellow Mini Minor
hurtling around town
visiting the one and no car homes
with stethoscope, instrument bag and jelly beans.
He checked our ears for rabbits
throat for aahhs
co-operation rewarded with jelly beans.
Prescriptions were scrawled at the kitchen table
while drinking tea
coffee still traitorous in a former English colony
dispensing medicine of a different sort – listening
company for over burdened, over childrened housewives.

With formalities and informalities complete
A rush to the surgery and mobile patients.
People paid monthly then
the scalpel of welfare applied to invoices
many agreeably billed for a sum less than expected.
It was widely known some never paid – and were never refused.

Grandpop died of betrayal
his body ceased to obey the mind’s will
spirit fled to another billet. Death moved in.
There should have been an autopsy
being pissed off with yourself doesn’t hold with the coroner
Grandma didn’t want him cut up
through tears said her husband would hate that
lying on a table like a slab of beef on a butcher’s block.
He came in the dark family saloon that visit
perhaps the yellow Mini too flamboyant for such a calling
or being early Sunday morning
his wife didn’t need the big car as a taxi
listened sympathetically
and counterfeited the paperwork.

He wasn’t unique
carbon copies in every small town
doctors who job shared with themselves
multitasking as paramedic, physician, counsellor, social worker
making a good living but not the dollars possible.

Some things disappear so irretrievably
it is possible to believe that existence never was.
Extinction.
Medicine is a business nowadays
General Practice renamed primary health care.
The family doctor as altruist
gone
and gone forever. Dead a good many years.

For the back story click Backstage
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I always intended to look him up
but youth is not careful with time
and when there was, I had to look down – a headstone.

Legend said he was a lawyer in a former life
some rumours spoke of ejection …. others of spectacular abdication.
“I’m a painter son ” – the reply to the teenaged question.

Paint. It’s what we did
while the sun holidayed south.
Bleached mansions in a faded suburb
a once star, off the bottle and thinking comeback.

Immigrant families – two or three to a house
unfamiliar scents and new rhythms
fathers who forbade me talking to daughters
mothers who knew painters were the death knell. Sale. Eviction.

Enlightenment didn’t realise until much later
improvement of lives was always imagined
Cinderella, dressed for the ball one more time.
Socialism. Wrong. Capital gain.

Still slack should be cut for age
and entertainment value of the boss – Morrie
two syllables… nothing more ever needed.
At the hardware store. No invoice, only statement… “ For Morrie.”

Stories about him filled the about to rise again borough
even if half
were half true!
With coffee, first-hand accounts of his battles with bureaucracies
the bank, his wives : past and present. All hilarious.

Flippant about himself and his ambitions
he told me, when the time came to purchase a house, to consult him
and he would tell me which ones not to.

Not a painter, a property developer
wide awake to the wide boys
a wheeler dealer and rogue, who every Friday lunchtime
handed over a bundle of notes … then drove me to the bank.

Education is different now, students not exposed to
the heterogeneity of the wool store
the killing plants
the building site
they would never meet a Morrie
an irreversible loss of social diversity. Their world is much poorer.

For the back story click Backstage
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She had the most beautiful hair
a distinctive mark of unassisted perfection
blonde meets prairie wheat gold
an exquisite tiara atop
a dowdy scowling Queen Victoria.
Nicotine rasped features
barbed wire tongue
and quick sand humour completed the disillusion.

I was at the outer edge of youth
still not completely shaped
still a little unworldly
a hand that couldn’t quite reach to
someone thwarting obvious classification.
A neighbourhood cat crossing neutral territory
uncertain whether to exhibit trust – or suspicion.

One morning as Christmas looms
an unexpected fruit tart
for me.
thoughts locked in the traffic jam of the season
fail to recognize the bypass through gridlock
and decline with crushing indifference
her generosity of spirit a hand slapped away.
A mistake not realized until too late
and
never given the opportunity for redemption.

For the back story click Backstage
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