I NEVER HAS SEEN SNOW

I lived my life as if
I had been written
into a Barbara Pym novel

so prim and proper lady I
my soul smoother'd in camphor
yet my life...wot the mot hath got

and here I be
curled upon the Persian rug
in the foetal position

being born
into my dying
as it were

me an elaborate motif
beside an exquisite phoenix
oh the warp and woof of me

so this is death
rather nice
as these things go

not too much( ouch )pain
more easeful and slow and
when ya gotta go...ya...gotta go

rather like that Manx man
was it Brown...or...something
"...if thou couldst empty..." oh what is it?

"...all thy self of self
to be a shell dishabited..."
bit like ha ha that...innit( agghh )

wonder what an anthropologist
from...say...Borneo
would make of me

I'd guess I'd be
so quaintly ever so English
so cue-cumber sandwich

settling down with a Pimms and a Pym
being one of those Excellent Women
**** this dying....haven't even read the book

only got as far as
p.15...how mean
the great unread

the words sticking in my brain
something being "...a welcoming
sort of place...

with a bright entrance..."
as if Mr. Death were saying
"Why...that's what I am!"

"Yeah, yeah...sure sure'"
I answer all Film Noir
another of life's little pleasures

the stuffed bird
stares at me sternly
deigns to speak

"Now that you are going to be
as dead as me...may I
have a word?"

it coughs unaccustomed
as it is
to public speech

"It's not so bad
being dead
it's being stuffed that hurts!"

the cat joins in
with its customary "I'm starving...
ya couldn't open this tin?"

now the cat howls
oh to have opposable thumbs
or a can opener at least

the stuffed bird and the cat and I
singing along to Beverly Kenny
smiling from the record sleeve

"Oh this used to be
my favourite as a girl
'I Never Has Seen Snow."

"Oh the girl I used to be
she ain't me no more!"
I could always carry a tune

the stuffed bird can't
sing for nuts but
the cat's got a good tenor voice

me...I'm letting go
the world is walking out on me
the world don't want to know me no more

I've even forget
can you Adam and Eve it
how to spell... fo'c's'le

my garden looks in
the window at me
well here's a howdy do

I never was '...a lovesome thing..."
even when young
"God wot!"

hee hee hee T.E. Brown
appears to invade the mind
when one is dying

and what would that Borneo
anthropologist make of that
or my love of Jazz

grabbing the music
by the tail as it shape-shifts
improvises world upon world and beyond

oh to be dying
in a smokey jazz club
thoughts climbing a spiral staircase of smoke

"All that is...is not!"
now I wonder where
I got ha ha that

would the man from Borneo know
that is Phil Woods on
the Quincey Jones arrangement

"Oh I love sax me!
never could say the same
for ***

well - enough of that
better get on with
my death

and what better way to go
than with Beverly singing low
always thought I looked a bit like her

she smiles that record sleeve smile
the one I tried to sculpt
upon my own features

"I saw a new horizon
and a road to take me
where I wanted to be...needed to be.... took"

"God! I'm only starving!" yowls the cat
"Ya couldn't feed me before ya go...no
**** those...**** those cans!"

"Oh ****...oh ****!" she purrs
the record's...the record's...the record's
stuck