Here is the final poem of my four poem set to musical accompaniment at Elizabeth Haines’ art gallery/studio in Pembrokeshire, Wales on August 27th 2022. In case not all the words are clear in the recording, I have printed the poem below:
Dancing my way to death
Not knowing now how much time remains
I put on some music in the living room
and dance like I never did before
(oh, that shy, inhibited, studious boy!).
I hop like a kangaroo with fleas,
I strut like a turkey that doesn’t
believe in Christmas
I fly like an aeroplane that will never
land, but disappear into the blue
blue forever
I click my fingers like flamenco dancer,
El Tigre, twirl my arms and stamp my feet
like Vicente Escudero, sway
like Raquel de Luna
I shake my Parkinson’s shake
I shimmy my Parkinson’s shimmy
I rock my hips to and fro
like a connecting rod and piston
I’m a lovely mover
and alone in my spinning, shaking
who-knows-when-dying flying world
and the bananas in the fruit bowl look
embarrassed but continue to ripen
the apples breathe in and out on their way
to decay and who can stop any of this?
I just keep taking the pills
there will be coffee and cake and poetry
read in the street in flowery shirts
and sometimes when the hot sun shines
perhaps I will unfurl myself on to the lawn
dressed in a crimson shirt (and nothing else!)
and try the rumba, the bossa-nova
the samba, the mambo, the cha-cha-cha
before the light goes out for good
and the earth spins on
without me.
© Dave Urwin 2022
It’s important to note that I have Parkinson’s Disease, and I am therefore not ‘mocking’ anyone who may suffer from this awful condition, only perhaps laughing at myself!
JadedMountain 