In Memoriam Helen Keen
I remember talking to you in the Post Office
Two days before you OD'd.
You were cashing your giro
And I was buying stamps.
You wanted to talk
So we chatted about cats.
You had eight interbred beasts
And my Ludovic was newly buried
In the back garden.
I didn't say I was looking for a kitten
Because you might have given me one.
The inbreeding frightened me.
You remembered the `Cat Poems'
And I confessed I didn't write anymore.
I remember you from five years ago
Before you got mixed up with Pretty Boy
Who used to smash your face to a blue pulp.
When you had the drugs in you
You used to go for him with a knife.
He was your fatal obsession.
I remember you in The Livingstone pub
With a rucksack full of tins of catfood.
Bent double with the weight
as you went out the door
For the bus up the hill.
You needed a drink to make the trip.
I remember coming back from Casualty
After my pseudo heart attack
And meeting you in The Englishcome Inn.
You told me all about the lesbian love affair
Which had broken your heart.
We talked of drugs and the mental hospitals
We had been in. You had been
A topclass nurse and were proud of it.
I thought you could never give up heroin
But then you had no needle marks on your arms.
That was for later with Pretty Boy.
You walked down to see my house
And sat on the floor with your bottle of Natch.
You felt pretty in yourself but you never came back.
Cider Joe was so in love with you.
It drove him even more neurotic.
You would leave him, your nextdoor neighbour,
Notes begging for money and food.
He was so jealous of Pretty Boy.
Over the years Joe became detached from you
As you sank into your drugged dream.
The police were always up there separating
You and Pretty Boy.
It was a strange lovers' tryst
With a knife in each hand.
I think Mark left the flowers
On the pavement outside your flat
After your death.
You had spirit and now are gone.
Nobody will miss you. Nobody would miss me.
We survive for as long as we can
And then we say goodbye.
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc/poetry/poets/keen1.html
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