Take Care, me ‘andsome

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Speaking after the service to the Uffculme gravedigger filling in the grave,
he came out with some choice Devon that would have pleased Dave.
Like’em say; them with lots of friends die young!
200 or so I counted, and all there for one.

The bells rang out at St Mary’s at the end, after Dun Ringill by Tull.
Bells that that mischievous buyy (pulling the other one) often would literally pull.
Catching the bus back to Exeter with postmarked post I’d sent long ago,
beloved Devonia, with its herds and hills, was on a roll.

28 year gone since it would begin
with Bill and that Friday pint and pasty lunchtime break at The Bridge Inn.
You, always a half cider at most, while me on that infamous occasion (bolloxed)
having got to It’s not fair! back from The Double Locks.

Then there was your pride and joy Barclay which you worked on meticulously
only for it to break down at the wrong moment unfailingly.
Your old leather jacket and more reliable Moto Guzzi.
Whether the engine was running or not, our vintage joke was I never knew your age exactly.

Musically, (apart from our mutual Who worship), we dueled with compilations designed to educate.
Your greatest victories were Jethro and The Moody Blues.
Mine Morrissey, though (for your begrudging acknowledgement) you made me wait!
In recent years, you sent DVDs and gave me a proper job hard disk portable drive to use.

Last time, last December we met as usual at Waterstones, Cathedral Green.
After a bit of dithering about going somewhere different, we went on to Topsham
and The Passage Inn.
You, holding up your cup, and with an impish smile,
milking the fact I said it wasn’t the done thing in Italy to drink a cappuccino with your main meal!

Lots more to mention like my printing offset litho disaster
when, with ink flying off onto the Vincent Thompson carpet (a stain that would never disappear!)
you came to my rescue. Or the (not so many?!) times you covered for me arriving late for work, worse for wear.
Or our laughing at Bill’s legendary assertion that before I met you all, I had no character.

So, yes, please all rise, and hats off to The Mighty Trist, as he takes a bow
in all his fine family crest pageantry.
Well, me old bugger, you’m gone and done it now.
You b’aint be coming back, will he?

In memory of Dave (David Anthony Trist 1954-2015)
This poem written 26/5/2015

Published by aprettykettleofpoetry

John Di Girolamo was born during the swinging middle ages as the Battle of Hastings raged outside on a cold, miserable Saturday evening just outside 'The Juggler's Arms' in Oxford, Torquay and Exeter at the same time. Born to a family, he spent most of his early years learning how to open umbrellas for a rainy day, and the runnings of horses and sword swallowers and the costs they incurred. Having graduated in 'Circus Management', he took to spinning plates for a living and persuaded his father to buy a restaurant to fund what he believed would be a lucrative career move. However, in the the days leading to The Age of Post Punk', he quit and would embark upon what was to go down in history doodles as a notebook. Few knew it then but he had already started copying poetry, and often written by other people. As the minutes passed by, and Sardinia loomed, the idea of collages and drawings suddenly hit him as a way of filling up what had become a kind of book with pages and all. One day while storming off in a huff because his mum told him to, he struck upon the idea of putting it all together over a long-playing record (later a CD) and during a commercial break in the digital age, decided a blog would end Cromwell's ill-fated republic. Sent off by recorded post, it would be by chance that his poems would get to their ultimate destination as, meanwhile, his pigeon who had queued so loyally for so long, sadly died the day before it was sacked.

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