My Mate Nicky
Just the truth.
Nicky Nicholson New Zealand 1999
His hands shook
His face contorted
He fought with
His stomach
Every morning
Palsy’d whiskey
Into his coffee
At breakfast
Thought no one
Noticed
As his new day
Was inhaled past
His vomit rotted
Teeth.
His breath stunk
His skin was
pallid
He hadn’t washed
His eyes
Were like
Dark
Stained glass
Portholes
As he peered
Out his blurry
Life at the
World.
Through the
Dregs in
A thousand
Glasses.
3rd Engineer
Nicky.
From Tauranga
New Zealand
My friend
Old friend
I covered for you
when you couldn’t
Arrive on the
World
I laughed at your
Drunken antics
I carried you
Home
Up the gangway
I put you to bed
With a bottle
In your bunk
For the shaky
Hours.
Hid your lighter
So we wouldn’t
Burn to death
I held you
When you cried
As reality
Appeared
Lost women
Lost dignity
Lost health
Lost life
When you died
Liverless
I cried
For myself
For every rotten
Bottle
I’d shared
With you.
Every time I’d sat
Across a bar
and heard you say
“Tomorrow
I’m gonna stop”.
Nicky Nicholson New Zealand 1999
ME,
A raw and frank retelling.
Enjoy in moderation, live to excess – certainly the principles that we seem to share.
Minor point: you have copied the piece twice into this post?
bhi
Shit have I?! I looked through my submissions and didn’t see it. My memory isn’t great I must have missed it. Thanks for the heads up mate. And thanks for taking the time to read and cement, it’s appreciated. I’ll have another look for the second one but couldn’t see it 🙁 before. I need organisation.
Nope can’t find it mate, just went through my submissions there doesn’t seem to be another one. Baffled, I know you must have seen it but I can’t find it. Can you copy me a link? Cheers. Phil.
Phil,
You’ve pasted twice into this one post. Are there supposed to be 5 stanzas or 10? The last 5 are a repetition of the first 5.
Got it, don’t know why I did that, I’ve deleted the second copy. Thanks Bhi 🙂
Like the minimalism you use for this poem. I think many of us had someone like Nicky in our lives and somehow feel guilt about how it all went.