' ' ' ' ' ' ' Tu...Qui...Tu! (For Mike Thorne) Poem by Dónall Dempsey

'TU...QUI...TU!

(for the onlie begetter of this ensuing verse - Mr. M.T.)



Life, isn't always pretty.

Life, isn't always nice.



And one gets the feeling

that perhaps



one is playing

with loaded dice.



That rat-a-tat-tat

on the midnight door



is none other than

the world famous Mr. Death



camping it up

with his toothy grin.



'Your money or your life! '

he quips

amiable as a jokey T.V. host.



'Only pulling your leg! '

he laughs

at your startle-ness.



'I'll take both! '



And the canned applause

goes craxy



as indeed you

'FORFEIT YOUR LIFE! '



Death

the great debt collecter



and your Life

footing the bill.



Life(as a poem

once put it)



isn't always nice

isn't always pretty.



And one gets the feeling

that perhaps



(perhaps?)



one is playing

with loaded dice.



*******

Written in pastice MacNeice for Mr. Mike.



I LOVE LOUIS and his almost iconic ironic voice...his sad shy smile at the moral seepage from suburbia when the sewage backs up and the shit hits the fan...Louis in his diffident demeanour is quietly...your man. Everyman's...everyman. I love his gentle strength...the tenderness of his knife that he wields surgeon like...that wordly wordly precision in which he saves...not takes a life. He sees with his little eye all our little foibles and weeds us like a weekend gardener weeding weeds that grow up amongst his prize roses. He both confronts and comforts us with ourselves...gets us to face up to the us...that's us and the possibility that we could be a possibly better other...us. He hungers for the genuine amongst the bric-a-brac of the human heart. His wistful smile steals upon us like sunlight...on a garden.





The poem for you came up because I cast a hurried glance over my Louis as I dashed for work this morning. Hope you like.

I will hopefully get 'round to typing you out some of my favourite Louis quotes so that we can be you...Louis...and me!



love Dónall Dónall