Coming and Going – A Ghazal

The hour that drunks meet, rheumy-gaze each other,
lurch apart again, forgotten by morning.

……….

Funds frozen like the favourite pokie on reserve;
music ends, strumming tympanic membranes go on.

……….

I think about the visit to a grave of a friend 17 years dead today.
Reflect on, in fresh air, 6 feet above, the play of bone and sinew I’d never thought of before.

……….

He’s spiked his hair like he’s been hung upside down,
All grubby Converse, Levi jeans, Guevara pretence.

……….

She felt tired Friday morning, even after coffee.
Sunday she rallied; by Wednesday she’d died without speaking.

……….

Checkout girl’s entranced by the boop…boop…boop of  passing items,
I see Women’s Weekly have dredged up Diana again with a commemorative DVD.

……….

First words and last words are recalled, what’s said in between is lost;
remembered words ride a character like a flag at half-mast.