' ' ' ' ' ' ' Tu...Qui...Tu! (For Mike Thorne)

'TU...QUI...TU! (for the onlie begetter of this ensuing verse - Mr. M.T.) Life, isn't always pretty. Life, isn't always nice. And one gets the feeling that perhaps one is playing with loaded dice. That rat-a-tat-tat on the midnight door is none other than the world famous Mr. Death camping it up with his toothy grin. 'Your money or your life! ' he quips amiable as a jokey T.V. host. 'Only pulling your leg! ' he laughs at your startle-ness. 'I'll take both! ' And the canned applause goes craxy as indeed you 'FORFEIT YOUR LIFE! ' Death the great debt collecter and your Life footing the bill. Life(as a poem once put it) isn't always nice isn't always pretty. And one gets the feeling that perhaps (perhaps?) one is playing with loaded dice. ******* Written in pastice MacNeice for Mr. Mike. I LOVE LOUIS and his almost iconic ironic voice...his sad shy smile at the moral seepage from suburbia when the sewage backs up and the shit hits the fan...Louis in his diffident demeanour is quietly...your man. Everyman's...everyman. I love his gentle strength...the tenderness of his knife that he wields surgeon like...that wordly wordly precision in which he saves...not takes a life. He sees with his little eye all our little foibles and weeds us like a weekend gardener weeding weeds that grow up amongst his prize roses. He both confronts and comforts us with ourselves...gets us to face up to the us...that's us and the possibility that we could be a possibly better other...us. He hungers for the genuine amongst the bric-a-brac of the human heart. His wistful smile steals upon us like sunlight...on a garden. The poem for you came up because I cast a hurried glance over my Louis as I dashed for work this morning. Hope you like. I will hopefully get 'round to typing you out some of my favourite Louis quotes so that we can be you...Louis...and me! love Dónall Dónall