There's a myth that when you finish
a good book, the author dies for you.
At least, I often feel a sense of loss.
I was near the end of a fine book of essays.
I heard the author was dying, incurable.

Famous mass media man, favoured
by the more selective viewers, journalist,
interviewer, novellist, cultured critic,
humourist, philosopher, a thinker's man.

Ought I to have read that final essay,
defy the myth? Next day I scanned
the papers. His death was not reported.
I trust we both breathed normally again.

CLIVE PALMER IS NOW ILL
AND CANT REMEMBER ANYMORE
TWO BUSINESS MEN FROM THE PAST
BOTH TRIED THE SAME SCORE


THEY ALL HAVE RUN THEIR
COMPANY INTO THE GROUND
WHERE DID ALL THE MONEY GO
NEVER MORE TO BE FOUND


ITS NOW THE CREDITORS AND WORKERS
THAT NOW ALL HAVE TO MISS OUT
BECAUSE CLIVE PALMER HAS LOST HIS MEMORY
AND DOSEN'T KNOW WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT


WHEN WILL THESE HIGH FLYERS LEARN
TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT THEY HAVE DONE
INSTEAD OF LOOSING THEIR MEMORY
AND ONLY THINKING OF NUMBER ONE