Izzy

Izzy

 

weird to sit on a dusty pew

among a scatter of strangers

watching a shabby coffin

shouldered onto a trestle

unable to shift a lingering sense

I might, in part, bear some of the blame

 

functionaries urged

the mute congregation 

through a ‘Lord's my shepherd,'

up-tempo version 

the curtains closed - someone coughed,

that was that - Izzy was gone

 

I could not stand the man 

but I wished him no harm

I mused his mortality, Saturday,

he was killed two days later

in a noteworthy slice 

of down-beat theatre

 

Izzy was a world-class scrounger,

wheedling small change to place on

'nailed on' greyhound forecasts 

“I’ll see you right when the six dog wins”

he studied form, despised the tipsters,

a self-taught pundit, a savant in rags

 

a winner sent him hotfoot

for a packet of ready-mades

a loser meant lurking a little longer

to tap up punters cashing slips

at the perspex winnings counter

“I’ll see you right… the four’s a cert…”

 

Izzy was counting money, Saturday,

forty pounds odd – call it fifty

his eyes lit up with victory

“how about you see me right?”

he pushed past my outstretched hand -

nipping out quick for 20 Bensons

 

I watched him running, wondering,

‘what are you living for

what keeps you drifting,

without an oar, and nothing ahead

but a lonely death?’

a shock - the same applied to me!

 

next Monday morning shopping early

bread for toast and milk for tea

Izzy was kneeling by the roadside 

picking up discard ashtray dog ends - 

seeing neither me, nor the dustcart

brushing him into eternity

 

bread for toast, milk for tea,

and a bunch of fuchsias

to tie to a tree.