The casket was not carried out:
instead was wheeled
appalled family
walking either side
his mother riding in a chair behind,
reaching out to touch
then hold the lid
somewhat obscured by flowers.
He was forty-eight,
dangling at the end of schizophrenia;
voices having torn his soul,
with strident assertions
instruct him how
to plait his hair, to tie the knot,
to place the chair and kick it out.
“This is the best that we could do –
we are short of resources
for mental health.
We have to fund
forces in Afghanistan
invest in new buildings
do countable things.”
He was an artist at times
pencilling the Blue Mountains,
arcades in The Rocks.
After years his wife left him,
a frowning alien
cut off from relatives
who found him,
cut him down.
Argyle Place, The Rocks, Sydney
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