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Poetry
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For Andrew
By Katanga
14 April 2008

                  For Andrew

       The A – Z of a Friendship 

A is for anaesthetic
For pain that makes you weep
And all of us are half awake
But long to be asleep

B is for blood and bedpans
Final blessings in the night
Bugger all the righteousness
Why put up a fight?

C is for cunt and for cancer
The words we dare not say
But carved up by the surgeon’s knife
We hear them every day 

D is for depth of spirit
And the dawning of a song
That will keep us from dreaming
About night all day long 

E is for ever after
Which I look forward to
Every bloody evening
When I remember you 

F is for this fragile life
That leaves us frail in pain
For pity and for fuck’s sake
Will I ever see you again?

G is for going going gone
Without a lot to go
For going home at our journey’s end
Can I go now please? Yes? No?

H is for have and hold and hug
And distant memories
Time hurries down the corridor
Escaping with all these

 I is for introspection
I’m not the only one
Where do our long shadows go
That stretch beyond the sun?

 J is for jokes and jolliness
That haunt us like ghosts
Who dares make jests now
With God and the Devil our hosts? 

K is for knife and for cutting
Into everything we are
K is for knowing nothing
Of what we’ve learned so far

L is leaving all behind
Us all when we go
With something in front of us
What’s that? We’ll never know… 

M is for mother and father
And others lost to Time
Are they waiting for us
 Or an excuse for another rhyme? 

N is for nothing left of course
Except your memory
Bitterness hits the back of my throat
And leaves me utterly empty 

O is for only and only if
We could meet once more
There’s something I would wish for us
If only I knew what for… 

P is for passion and passing on
What we know is true
I saw your face yesterday
Was it really you? 

 Q is for quasi-feelings
That this doggerel betrays
But you will be here beside me
Forever and always

R is for rest and resting
And putting your feet up
And drinking for ever and ever
From Life’s bottomless cup 

S is for sterilised needles
But what use are they
When our dreams are all putrid
And swimming in decay? 

T is for Time and truthfulness
Which shift around my bed
I’d rather see you and hear your lies
For a few minutes instead 

U is for utterly, utterly gone
Gone with no coming back
With no defence and no excuse
And no counter-attack 

V is for visions of you
Fading in the light
Greying in the daytime
Blazing colour through the night

W is for the wisdom
Which we never shared
Of all our days together
Who knew? And who cared? 

X is not for x-rays
I’ve had enough of those
But for the number of dreams left unfulfilled
How many is that? God knows! 

Y is for you and forever
I dream of your soft touch
I miss you now and will never
Long for so much so much 

 Z is for the final word
Which I’m too tired to say
Z is for my final sleep
It’s coming soon I pray      

Reviews

Written by fellpony (1752 comments posted) 15th April 2008
This is well worth the trouble of having sorted out the formatting. When I first tried to read it, it seemed such a jumble I gave up - but now it is a powerful reiteration of the despairing thoughts around a hospital bedside. I'm sure many people reading will find this echoes their thoughts. You carried through your a-z scheme cleverly and avoided cliche phrases. The occasional roughnesses seemed fitting somehow so I won't pick them out.
Friendship or Love?
Written by edjones (14 comments posted) 22nd April 2008
A couple of questions are raised immediately: how relevant is Andrew to the poem; is the title misleading as verse 'Y' speaks of an intimacy that "Friendship" seems too inadequate to describe? 
How important the first question is I do not know: possibly the second justifies more clarity? 
The conceit of the A-Z form is clever in that it suggests just the sort of mental exercise that a long-term bed-ridden patient might employ to ease the long, painful hours of recovery. It is also a  
demanding one to which you have responded with ingenuity 
while inevitably perhaps having the "occasional roughness" to which 'fellpony' refers. 
To this difficulty you have added the yoke of rhyme to which you wryly refer in verse 'M'.For me, the irony of "another excuse for a rhyme" is sits awkwardly here. 
The violence of trauma merits the grenade lobbed into verse 'C' but I wonder if it should be blamed on "the surgeon's knife"? 
Wouldn't have been more apt to attribute it to the brutalizing of war? (Military context is alluded to in verse 'V': "...no defense...counter attack...") 
Verse 'S' is, I think, particularly good and 'V' also: the "Blazing colour" of fevered dreams contrasting with the "fading" and "greying" of fuddled daytime reality. 
Verse 'Z' is clever too and has dark humour in its two ZZd's for the "final sleep" which replaces the "final word". 
The ambition of this poem was challenging but the result is worthwhile. You have created a powerful poem which I enjoyed very much. 
 
 
Andrew's Relevance
Written by Katanga (1552 comments posted) 22nd April 2008
Hello Sue and Ed! Thanks so much for your comments! 
 
Ed - I really appreciate the close reading you've given this, and the detailed and perceptive comments that you make. In response: 
 
Andrew was an old (meaning 'going back a long way') friend of mine, who died of lung cancer, aged 45, on March 10 last year. 
 
I never visited him when he was ill, and by the time I knew for certain he was on the way out, his family had barred visitors (understandably - a few more days and nights to go). 
 
This poem is, guiltily, in his memory, but you're right - it's not directly addressed to him or even about him personally, so the relevanca may be merely my own self-indulgent penance . . . 
 
The poem is, crudely, about facing death in hospital (How jolly!). I originally called it 'An A - Z of Hospitals' - better, perhaps? 
 
It's now about any loved one dying (forget Andrew). 
 
I was angry with myself in the line M 'Or an excuse for another line' - thought I was using Andrew and my parentsfor pretentious literary purposes ( well I am!). 
 
Occasionally there's a lazy ambiguity in my thing - is it the patient or the visitor talking? I quite like the confusing darkness of that . . . 
 
Over to you Ed! Cheers! John 
 
PS Do post something of your own soon! X 
 
 
 

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