Happy Shriney

True, I don’t much visit your grave to place flowers
and ponder on your mouldering remains;
the dead plot of earth,
the standing stone
and chiselled Roman script.
You could’ve carved that in your sleep.
And with one hand tied behind your back;
so to speak.

But maybe if the stone was an old packet of Park Drive filterless fags;
red and white with its curly, cursive writing and silver paper slips.
And maybe if this bench was the back seat from your old Hilman Minx;
smelling of leather, trumping and squeaking to an eight year old’s pleasure
and the pewter pot was your old golf bag with its clatter of clubs
and the celestial music was Riding Down From Bangor on your old guitar
and maybe if they made a pergola like your yellow Isetta Bubble Car

with its engine loud enough to wake the dead.
Maybe if they livened this place up a bit,
then maybe instead it could offer me more, more than I have;
more maybe than I already carry ‘round in my head.