Robert Verdon, #72, Death is a Jobsworth

In he comes, scythe at the slope,

Apologetic, peaky, hangdog expression,

‛It’s more than my job’s worth not to take you’,

He whines, fingering the glittering blade,

‛Sorry if it’s in-con-venient,

But they’ll have my guts for garters if I stuff it up this time.’

He sits on your favourite chair,

Drumming his osteal fingers on his knee,

Glancing nervously at your copy of Donne’s Complete English Poems on the shelf,¹

Pale lizard-blood from his finger staining his ragged bones.

He is letting you prepare yourself for the journey,

Not that it means a damn thing to him,

But there’s such a thing as proto-col,

And standards must be observed,

Or something, how does it go, trrock-te-trrock, wish the boogger’d hurry up,

Me tea’s getting cold back at the depot …,

You marvel at how much he resembles the A.R.P. warden in Dad’s Army,

Then reflect on how bloody old you’ve got,

And how you bloody well refuse to go gentle into that good night,

Being up on English poetry in general;

But he doesn’t seem a literary fellow, more a man

At home with rigid triplicated rules (you cannot see Death trilling a mandolin,

Or dandling a grandchild, though he has done both),

And you know there is a limit to his patience, he’s just doing his job,

And has never read Marx;

So you ostentatiously light a cigarette after thirty years’ abstinence,

Pour yourself a glass of your best single malt,

Offer him the same, which he declines with a skeletal gesture,

Gripping his scythe more tightly with the other hand,

‛Sorry, it’s bad for the health’; he does not smile, though you do,

And settle down comfortably, white locks glowing, to await the theatrical

Inevitable.

1See Holy Sonnet X:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow
And soonest our best men with thee do go
Rest of their bones and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppies or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swellst thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!