GRANDMA’S TATTOO
“You could cover that tattoo,”

She said….

”show some respect”.
“Do you think if I did….
the world would forget?”

“But your old”,
“And……it’s strange,”
“It looks like a price,”

Grandma smiled and said….

“Well I’ve paid all my life”,

I challenged her vanity,
And…she fought with her pride,
Never again,
Would she ever hide,
I am older now
I no longer wonder……
…..about that tattoo,
Or the cost of those numbers
© B L Costello 2016

-on my mother's last months, or how
to do the final step without moving

I am not ready to go, she said.
I accepted doctor's verdict;
still, I ask: why me, why now, why?

     I hate these vultures, mother,
     that eat you from inside.
     I faintly see them through your skin,
     not even trying to hide.

I am not ready for resignation.
I am so angry about all this.
I am so angry with you.

     Your heart is cut in half
     and all we see
     is darkness:
     distrust, anger, fear.

I am not ready for all the answers
that wait for me on the other side.
Oh, let me have my questions please.

     Your brains are chopped to pieces.
     Little spans of time -
     that's all you keep in mind,
     and dismiss again with ease.

I am not ready to go.

     A premature Tibetan burial,
     a cruel death while still alive:
     witness of your own decay.
     So that's how Mother Nature will finally arrive?

I'll never be ready to go.

     Wait until she comes over the top,
     an almighty demon, an enemy from within.
     So that's our clean, sober, rational world:
     a cold, efficient killing machine?

I'll never be ready to go.

     I'll never be ready to go.

-on a local beer at a local pub, or
another good reason to speak out as a poet

An angel in an apron offered me a drink.
"Here comes Eternal Youth," she said,
"it is meant to make you think."

     While I drank, the world billowed like a sail.
     Time went crazy, bladders appeared,
     the world's front peeled off like a veil.

Heroes and gods alike were humbled.
Their faces aged, their bones crumbled,
the wind swept away what remained of them.

     With them they took the light.
     I stumbled in pitch black darkness
     and man, from the deep I cried.

And then, suddenly, I knew:
my voice, that's me, I'm here!
I'm not too young to interfere!

     I shouted and pushed up the curtain,
     reflected light cut through the dark:
     the waving sea, time to embark!

My angel again was in her counsellor's role.
"Now sail in song forever," she spoke,
"raise your voice, save your soul!"

     I peered into the golden waves...
     and found it was this magic potion,
     that turned and turned in its majestic motion.

There is truth in wine but there's soul in beer;
and when it sends you spinning, sing, sing!
sing, so all the world can hear!