As the wind blows ever faster,
And the temperature drops,
– I am recalled
To my dialogue with the dead.
My grandfather, Jack, had his
Last pint of bitter in this pub
I am sitting in before
Embarking for France in 1914,
And his first one back in November 1918.
2020 Jack – alive in my heart – always loved, never seen –
Not a line of his writing have I, not a wisp of his hair;
Now be-suited businessmen and women sit there
Endlessly playing with their phones, endlessly twiddling,.
They wouldn’t know a pint of best bitter
If you threw one in their well-manicured
Faces. Sometimes, I am possessed by
Jack’s spirit: his anger at injustice and his ability
To see through glib hypocrisy and gob-shitery. Fuckery
Of all sorts and conditions, by all sorts and conditions;
When the day fades into night
And I’m free of pain, at last
I see into the past
With Jack’s clear-sighted eye.
InnerUrban 