Poems For Clive.

 I'm a terrible person, as we can all agree. Like most people, I seek the company of my own kind, so most of my friends are terrible people, too.
 Handsome, well hung, funny, charming people, but terrible with it.*
 As a result, myself and a friend have a yearly dead pool in which we each pick three celebrities we think are likely to die. Winner gets a bottle of Scotch.
 Still stinging from last year's defeat (my friend got the trifecta of Michael Winner, Maggie Thatcher and Nelson Mandela) I picked carefully this year and went with Sir Richard Attenborough, Chuck Berry and Fidel Castro.
 My friend, meanwhile, picked Zsa Zsa Gabor, Billy Graham and Clive James.
 Unusually, we've made it as far as July with a no-hitter; everyone on each list is still alive.
 Even the tie-breaker, former Pope Benedict (or ex-Benedict as some wags have dubbed him) is still above ground.
 Of everyone on each list (which includes a couple of nonagenarians and at least one senile amputee) the youngest and most certain of his own demise is the great Australian writer Clive James, who has admitted several times that he is entering his final lap in life, not least because in his youth he would "fill an ash tray the size of a hubcap with cigarette butts" every day.
 In a recent interview, James said that in light of his waning mortality, he had started writing poems to his loved ones.
 Whilst discussing our unusually dull year of celebrity deaths, we touched on this and speculated as to what he was writing.
 Here's what we came up with.

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"This is a poem to stop all the rumours,
 I'm definitely dying, and have lots of tumours.
 The only thing left is my good sense of humour,
 I hope it stays with me while I'm still alive,
 Which won't be much longer,
 Adios everyone,
 -Clive."


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"This is a poem for Lenny the Priest,
I hope he absolves me before I'm deceased."


[These were fairly mild. It wouldn't last.]

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"This is a poem from my old mate Frankie,
 I'm writing whilst coughing up blood in a hankie..."
 
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"A final goobye to my dear wife, Callista,
 I never much liked you and twice fucked your sister."

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"I never wanted to strain or test,
The relationship with my brother, Dan,
 But I think it's high time that he confessed,
He's the one who abducted Maddie McCann...
 I don't want to drop him in it, but he's a friend of Rolf Harris,
And he's currently visiting Polanski in Paris.
 Judge, he's guilty as sin, so bang down your gavel,
He was also big mates with the late Jimmy Savile."

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"This is the story of my countryman, Rolf.
He touched lots of kids.
 Inappropriately."

[Not all poems have to rhyme...]

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"A poem for my child,
The spoiled little brat,
 My estate's gone to charity,
So go find a flat!
 You heard me the first time,
You're out of the ho-em,
I don't even like you enough,
 To finish this limerick properly."

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 That was as far as we got with the game in a short bus journey, but let the record show that if Clive James dies tomorrow, I'm going to feel both a) guilty and b) omnipotent.
 Also c) one third closer to losing a bottle of Scotch. 







*I'm aware that only people I know read this blog. It pays to pander to your audience.