Postcards from Malthusia DAY THIRTY-SEVEN: Neil Fulwood

BWV 156

(Ich steh mit einem Fuss im Grabe)

 

I am standing with one foot in the grave, according

to the media, when I’d much prefer the pose

of a stricken Victorian poet, reclining on a chaise longue,

 

velvet smoking jacket and a thimble of a glass

brimming with some dull opiate, everything

just terrible, the evening’s erotic promises cancelled.

 

I am standing with one foot in the grave: radio,

TV, the internet insist on it. Texts from government

and NHS ram it home. I am a hair’s breadth 

 

from being a footnote to a statistic in a news bulletin.

I am a marked man, doomed, blogging on borrowed time.

Yet my cough is receding. My temperature’s normal. I feel fine.

 

 

 

Neil Fulwood has published two collections with Shoestring: No Avoiding It and Can’t Take Me Anywhere. He lives in Nottingham where he works as a bus driver.