Poem 273

Jumping out of the midst of the hundreds written in 1984 this is pretty much a perfectly structured poem (I think) where form and subject are working seamlessly together – hard to believe I didn’t try to do more with it, even include it in my Original Composition portfolio of that year … maybe I thought it wasn’t the voice I was trying to find and cultivate as a young poet of the eighties, that it seemed a little James K Baxter-of-the-50s-ish, perhaps I was trying to eschew rhyme … whatever concerns of authenticity of style I might have had at the time are long gone, after all the poem embodies my own observation and insight as well as the expression of some serious skills – I just think this is fantastic now …

( I enjoy the loose but confident rhythm and rhyme, the development of the idea through the three stanzas and the closure of the couplets at the end of each one, the set-up and payoff of the sleep till he slept lines, half-rhyme of chorus and service, and how it all seems to be done with a deceptively easy flick of the wrist … and I love the fact that this would have been one of two poems I wrote that day … )

The Popular Man

Self-centred they said
as they lowered him down
we'd be jumping in after him
if he had his way
if he was for drinking
then no one could stay dry
no one could sleep until he slept
and no one was safe
if they tried

he was a cheeky old bastard
they said when he died

even when he was on the wagon
he had to be the one who sat up the front
and whipped all the horses along
he always told your jokes better
you always ended up singing his songs
but the crowd went right out to the footpath
and down the street you could hear
the chorus

he'd have liked all this
they said at the service

but after the funeral
they leave him alone
and all drive away for a tea
at his home
and they're all pretty quiet
and all looking tired
though a send off in style
was what was required

no one could sleep till he slept
and no one is safe
now he's died