Up In Smoke Poem by Nick Burbridge

I address this to old Doctor Bermingham,
who always asked after my mother,
prescribed the company of dogs, and caught pneumonia,
the keen new psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia,
or any other who might want to put on
a red suit and try out a few belly-laughs.

Don’t bring medication that means parched lips,
hallucinations, delayed impact, or no thrust;
slow-release capsules that interact
with cheese and herring in fatal detonations;
or learned papers on the biochemistry of disorder;
how a minority fail to respond to invading forces
like renegades in a hill-fort surrounded by tanks and mortars,
determined to hold out for the dark cause.

Please substitute a more simple expedient,
in the name of goodwill and peace on earth:
a sense of time that passes on a well-paced linear path
where the loved remain in the heart
and we are this evening who we were this morning.
This has a name, but I forget.

I understand if it’s too much.
Keep me the Perry Como album,
It’s A Wonderful Life,
a half-bottle of Southern Comfort,
and a bag of pistachio nuts. Biscuits and brandy
are on the willow-patterned plate in the hearth.
The chimney was swept last week
by the new-age tree surgeon across the street.

I can’t promise to be asleep,
but I can fake it.
I am sorry if the need to be good has been lost
in the effort to be perfect,
and for doubting you exist.
I write this in the hope you will not forget.