I need to go away, I said

I've done my time

Doing what's right

But now I need some time for me:

To refresh my soul.

One year from what I have left

Is all I ask

And that's not much to ask.

She thinks I'm joking

But I'm serious

And already dreaming

About how I will spend

My long days of freedom

Me: Imagine if it's your worst day ever,
Over and over for all eternity

J: That's not how it works!

Me: Who said so? Are you writing the rules?

She was silent
Probably considering the worst day she had ever had

This one hits me harder than the rest:

The horror of the grave

An eternity of nothing.

The futility of it all

Makes me feel like screaming

And running away

From everyone and everything.

There will be no more sleep tonight

A fine day
Not as warm as yesterday
When the sun burnt my face

I sit in the park
With a coffee
And people watch

The Japanese tourists
Photograph the blossom
The irony makes me smile

A Japanese boy stares at me
I put my sunglasses on

Perhaps I remind him
Of someone
He once knew

She wrote me a poem

I forgive her.

It's beautiful, I say:

A

Lifeboat

After the shipwreck

Don’t get old
The old boy said

As he struggled past me
With his walking stick

Don’t get old
He repeated

As though by telling me
I would be able to avoid it

There’s a 25 year old
Fighter pilot inside me, he said

Then he was on his way
Hunched over
Shuffling along
With his walking stick

John died last night, my wife reported

Sadness:

Mostly for him

Some for me

As I’m reminded

My days are numbered

He was a good old guy:

Led a full life

Survived war

And marriage

I wondered what he thought at the end

Knowing his time had come

What an inglorious finale?

Or

Just

Relief to finally be departing

This absurd life?    

I’d invited him to visit my studio

The last time we spoke

He said he would like that …...