A staring-at-oblivion 'Poetry Sunday'

The dismal tick-tock of the mortality clock, bringing too near the end of another year (Agh - this preamble is almost becoming a poem itself! Must... stop... rhyming! I would hate for my mid-life crisis to manifest itself in an attempt to become a rapper.)... Now, where was I? Oh yes, my imminent birthday is - as usual - filling me with gloom. So, I thought I'd better try to lighten my spirits with this piece of zestful silliness. I'm not sure when this was written, but I rather think I remember it from my own schooldays back in the 1970s, and certainly from my spell of schoolteaching at the end of the 1980s.

Let Me Die A Youngman's Death

Let me die a youngman's death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death

When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party

Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides

Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death

Roger McGough  (1937-  )