If he could play the violin

If he could play the violin

As well as he could fiddle

He would play it endlessly

Whilst he tarries

With nothing else to do but wait

As the clock ticks time.

What big hands it has

Waving them around

For all the world

Like a music hall entertainer

A minstrel

With no sense of irony

A smile pasted

On its face

As wide as the Mississippi,

Goddam.

He would ride a camel

Across the desert

Its endless sweeping sands,

A Lawrence

Pretending he had found Arabia

On a big screen

So much for Caleb Lean

Who made hell on earth

Seem quite romantic

For a while

It would be enough to make him smile

At the memory

Of purpose and heft

So much of what is left

Is a short straw

As hollow as an Eliot man

Praying that what he carried

Was not a rusted bucket

Full of sawdust

A slow hand

With a fast twitch

Trying to make music

Out of an elastic band and a lolly stick.

The emptiness inside

Deepening the further he fell

Into the rabbit hole

An endless burrow

Without any light

And no direction

But straight ahead

Until he was antiquated

Emaciated

And in the end

Finally, as dead as a Dodo

Emancipated,

As a Blithe Spirit,

Free of obligation.