The Irish Wake:

I went to the wake with Jim because

the man was dead that was,

now paddling across the great water.

He wasn't my favourite man

A 'cant do', 'wont do' man,

He wrote the text; the author.

Just another spoke in the sameness wheel

he was, a hollow tree-trunk still.

Mouth, a cave furnished with a few white chairs,

The living viewing the sockets of the dead

Denying that they were or went,

History guarded like scandalous affairs.

Eyes, battle- scarred scary marbles

Staring at the contrapuntal lines of life,

As much direction as a yolk broke egg,

He couldn't forsake his own distress

his repeated route, tedium crawl of the unreal,

Cup overflowing with draught, a dreg.

He tripped on the shadow of barbed wire

and fell into no man's sea of dark,

All cats are black in the night.

The valleys in his face were once cheeks

propping up his nose and brow,

He opened up the window to let out the light.

Ignorant of being ignorant, he was,

A grain of silt in Sahara's sand,

A squirrel spit on a petrified tree,

I went to the wake with Jim because

the man that was, was dead.

His life was cheap, his death was free.

(Tis said you should never speak ill of the dead; this doesn't mean you should abandon the truth)