Spike, we talked of you today. <br />You’ll have to live with that now, I guess - <br />it seems that everyone has <br />a place in their hearts for you. <br />So, like a heap of ‘floral tributes’, <br />they’re all individual, but <br />it makes a very great pile <br /> <br />For myself, it’s that look on your face <br />that stays – as if you found life just so great a thing <br />that it stupefied you, wondering <br />how to confront it – whether <br />to laugh at it or cry for it <br />(both of which you did so well, <br />that perhaps it didn’t help you much <br />to decide between, so, lucky us, we got both by turns..) <br />and on your face, that quizzical appeal <br />to the rest of us, to help you to decide <br />how to confront life…or sometimes, should we even try? .. <br /> <br />When you see, in theatre foyers, <br />those two masks of tragedy and comedy, <br />it could say underneath – <br />‘To Spike Milligan, who knew both’ <br />and perhaps people would notice them more and think. <br /> <br />And though you laughed and cried <br />at our mortality like <br />a philosopher who was also <br />a stand-up performer with tears of absurdity in his eyes, <br />it seems we’ve decided that <br />despite how you may be feeling now, <br />we’ve decided in our mortality <br />that you’re immortal. <br /> <br />I guess <br />you’ll just have to live with that.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-for-about-because-of-spike-milligan/
