He took off the crust of his coat that he wore next to the shreds that were next to his skin
and slid into the bath.Then
stripped off the dirt that had gathered,remembering it had once been his shirt but that was so long in the past.
Relaxing,recalling the moments of falling,the sheer desperation,depression,impressions that all fade away,
washed out and bleached before he had reached his nadir,he now peers through the years and soap bubbles his tears until they too are gone,
eyes that once shone are now dulled,pulled into his face and battened down in place by the passage of people that walk through his mind,knowing so many and too late to find the names of a kind he once knew,dripping these
thoughts he flows into the abyss between the plug and the spiral and spins,
in this end no one wins,not the rich,nor the poor man,though he has been both men,
but then again, so have we all.
In his fall,on his face,no turning gracefully old,the bathwater gets cold and the call at the door,
where sombre faces explore the remains of Fred James,laying fame to the wind in the wash house at Bow.
We all have to go,some do it fast and others do it slow and some never know they were here and they're gone,
life goes in and goes on and the day will be done
and its meaning unclear,though
please wash your hands here,
is the closest I get to an understanding .