The poem
Your bed's got two wrong sides. You life's all grouse. I let your phone-call take its dismal course:
Ah can't stand it no more, this empty house!
Carrots choke us wi'out your mam's white sauce!
Them sweets you brought me, you can have 'em back. Ah'm diabetic now. Got all the facts. (The diabetes comes hard on the track of two coronaries and cataracts.)
Ah've allus liked things sweet! But now ah push food down mi throat! Ah'd sooner do wi'out. And t'only reason now for beer 's to flush (so t'dietician said) mi kidneys out.
When I come round, they'll be laid out, the sweets, Lifesavers, my father's New World treats, still in the big brown bag, and only bought rushing through JFK as a last thought.
i thought this poem was good for many different reasons. but i dont understand the part where it says JFK.
Long distance poem
When I re-read this poem to figure it out, it all shot to me what it was all about. Harrison is pretty cut up about his fathers death - "I still call the disconnecetd number" - hoping his father would pick up implying he is struggling to let go. Him and his father became very "distant" as his father was in denial about his wifes death.
tony
the poem is very gay, very gay indeed