The Liar/ Not an answerphone message

The Liar Each day that I lie, in my dreamlike state to myself and insignificant others about my will not to live, someone innocent dies. Each time I deny that death is no shame, or the tenure of life is equipped to cope with the loss of a child, somebody else dies. Every year I allow to pass everyone by, each swallow I salute - each morbid sunrise I hold on to my love, although I be despised Something ineffable in me dies. Not an answerphone message for joe. I called you. By so many names so many words. I called you joe and joker junior. I called you man and little mate. When you bounced I called you Tigger. To Idioteque you were Radiohead-banger. At speed my firecracker. Falling out of a tree I called you son, and we laughed that you’d only broken your cherry. You were daredevil when we mastered that cliff in the dark. If you were Pippin I was usually Merry. At Christmas I called you. Impossible child. How you had so much of your mother in you. On your birthday I called you. Invisible man. And for the next thirteen years I didn’t call you.