My Lost Gypsy Brother. (New Longer Version).

Today is a day of bad bad news,
No wonder the wind shook the windows all night,
The rain blowing in under the eaves
And soaking the bedside furniture;
Today is a day of bad bad news.

I remember you sat by my bedside one winter
When I was laid low with a bout of flu
Unable to sit up straight and talk.
The seat you sat on has been wrecked by the rain
And will have to be sawn up and binned.

Today is a day of bad bad news,
But you always said it would rain when you died
Because you were loved by the angels.
I thought you were telling another daft story
But last night the rain was torrential.

The stories you told were always just daft,
And your mind never understood logic,
You were a true gypsy lad who lived the old ways
Until the Tories made that life unlawful.
They dubbed you a scrounger, a liar, a cheat,
So you took to raw spirits and perished of cancer.
Today is a day of bad bad news.

Doctor Johnson defined the Tories as bandits
In his Dictionary of the English Language,
A definition still true after hundreds of years.
Doctor Johnson was kinder to the old gypsy folk,
They were good honest nomads, neither thieves
                                                       nor marauders:
They were refugee soldiers from eastern regimes.

But today is not a day for anger old friend,
It is a day for tears and the planting of flowers,
In the fields you played in when a youngster.
Wild flowers that will spread over moorland and meadow,
A garden vivacious with bees and with birdsong;
A garden where you might trace the footprints of angels.

Today is a day of bad bad news.
The wind shook the windows and doors all night,
The rain forcing entry under the eaves.
I hope you could see the stars when you died.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
August 21st. - 25th. 2020.
For Mcgill died this morning in his early fifties.
I had to write this poem simply because my heart was breaking.