When I am Old

 When I am old, I will puke purple

19 rum and blacks and Bob's your drunken uncle

I will have surgery on my tongue to subdue the bickering young

With its forked flickering

My children will divorce me, sue their mother

For custody of each other

And I will stand on street corners

Saying: you should stay away from convents

You would never make a monk

Just, if you're drunk do not get pregnant

If you're pregnant don't get drunk

Then I will go and be a cockleshell hero, noble

In some new Dunkirk or Chernobyl

Violet Szabo in wrinkles she earned but never wore

When I am old, let me puke purple