Tramp Tramp Tramp

Insanity left him when he needed it most.

Forty years at Bryant & May, and a scroll

To prove it. Gold lettering, and a likeness

Of the Founder. Grandad’s name writ small:

‘William McGarry, faithful employee’.

A spent match by the time I knew him.

Choking on fish bones, talking to himself,

And walking round the block with a yardbrush

Over his shoulder. ‘What for, Gran?’ ‘Hush…

Poor man, thinks he’s marching off to war.

‘Spitting image of Charlie, was your Grandad,

And taller too.’ She’d sigh, ‘Best-looking

Man in Seaforth. And straight-backed?

Why, he’d walk down Bridge Road

As if he had a coat-hanger in his suit.’

St Joseph’s Hospice for the Dying

Is where Chaplin made his last movie.

He played Grandad, and gave a fine performance

Of a man raging against God, and cursing

The nuns and nurses who tried to hold him down.

Insanity left him when he needed it most.

The pillow taken from his face

At the moment of going under. Screaming

And fighting to regain the years denied,

His heart gave out, his mind gave in, he died.

The final scene brings tears to everybody’s eyes.

In the parlour, among suppurating candles

And severed flowers, I see him smiling

Like I’d never seen him smile before.

Coat-hanger at his back. Marching off to war.