about
My other half suggested the title, hoping for something upbeat and positive. My stupid brain immediately thought about conversations with my neighbour. Tiny back story - I visit my elderly neighbours every Saturday morning to drop off a newspaper or TV Guide. One neighbour is in her early 90s and needs carers to come in every day to get her up and put her to bed; she’s physically fairly inhibited, but she’s mentally she’s as sharp as a pin and we always have great conversations about the world (and how miserable she is with it all). The other neighbour (late 80s) is mobile to a degree but is very frail and sees herself as weak and a burden on the world. While we still have nice chats, they always get around to assisted suicide or dying and how she wishes she could have gone at a point of her choosing, before she got too old to be of use to anyone (her words, not mine). It’s illegal in the UK, so she campaigns to make it legal; she always says, you wouldn’t let an animal suffer like this, so why do we preserve human life seemingly at all costs? At this point in my life, I think about it a lot too and I would like that option, should I feel the need of it in the future.
Anyway, so the positive, happy title I was given was Finish On A High, and I wrote a song about getting old, feeling useless and wanting the option to end one’s life at a point of one’s own choosing. To go out on your own terms. To finish on a high, if you like.
My son and his girlfriend were visiting this last weekend, and when I went off to play a gig on Saturday night (not as The Dutch Widows – that is a strictly private affair) I left them the keys to the computer and said “do what you like with it and I’ll work with whatever you give me”. I came back to find some quite exquisite backing vocals! I like them so much, I toyed with removing my vocals entirely and just leaving the BVs.
Sure, I used too many words, but once my other half pointed out that the challenge was not a restriction limiting word choices, but was an encouragement to use all the words, I gave it a go.
Embrace The Verbosity! (©Gizo 2023)
lyrics
It’s an irresistible slide
Slowly reaching full decline
Motor functions elide
Spongy brained yet alive
Stumble through lonely nights
Words no longer comply
Tripping tongue mangles rhymes
Teeth shattering vibes
Lips gripping sounds just to find
Wordless noises fade to die
Hands don’t grip like they used to do
Broken bones misshapen, yellow, ugly, bruised
Eyes spy a photo, colour senses collide at first sight
Gravity diminishes height
Taller aged four to five
Bulk shrinking to size
Boredom stretches out time
Impatience holding back the tide
Small wins fall between the widening cracks
Accumulate near the floor now the sweeping lacks
Tipping scales balance falling off the shelf to one side
See the signs that were never there
Partly hidden by the gorgeous hair
Seek a way to force a circle square
Raise a fist into the air
We are capable and able theoretically
Selecting an end point secretly carefully
Inflatable mattress aside
Silence dogs me everywhere
Grief’s an ancient’s despair
Future planning’s not my affair
Long to be most anywhere else
You wouldn’t let an animal suffer distress
Offer treatment stop the suffering embrace the abyss
Death comes too gradual to the wretched, the old, the benign
Push these thoughts across a sleepless night
Entertaining in cold blinking light
Where are people who pretend to care
To make amends for your thoughtless prayer
The ending I want selfishly, choosing free
Finish on a high
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