The Longer You Live The Force Becomes The Farce Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

How do you translate black laughter?

Medical professionals in Australia
Have devised a 29-point predictor
Of death within the short term -
Thirty days, thirty pieces of silver,
And the medium term of 12 weeks -
Eighty-four days, Three Moons.

In the hope that treatments are not wasted
And honest discussions can be engaged
With Older People who are frail and sick.

We speak of release: we speak of the quick hit,
Even as preferable to the thing that lingers.

If you are over 65 and admitted to the accident ward
In an emergency
You have a 25 percent chance of
Popping your clogs or dropping off your perch
In the next twelve months.

And one of the causes of dementia
Is that older brains slow
Knowing too much and getting jammed.

And many of us will not do it well
Although we have carried its mark for a long time.

"He or she died following a short illness"
The obituaries note.
At least now I know that a short
Illness is one lasting less than Lent or Ramadan
And that a medium illness is one lasting
Less than the payment schedule for your property rates
Providing absolutely no relief
For what may be outstanding.

At the last, some can only be seen as they were always seen
Not ennobled by it but reduced.

I did a quick check of the twenty-nine points
And scored eight
But my wife who is a nurse
Hadn't a single tick
In my boxes
So from a clinical perspective
There are no thieves evident in my night.

Why we are frightened is that we in part
Know ourselves and what is possible.
Walls fall; doors slam on daily lives more
Often than caution prepares for -
Where there is blood some is likely to spill.
And whether the kiss or the curse is the truer
Metre of passion is difficult to foretell.


NOTE: Quotations from 'True Confessions of the Last Cannibal' by NZ Poet Louis Johnson (1924-1988].