Books: The Friday Poem – Death called by, by Sam Hunt

24 Oct 2015
Culture
Poetry-Shelf

Poetry for the soul

 

Death called by

(I.M. Glenn Jowitt)

 

Death called by the other day –

no one was home at the time.

A note, ‘Sorry I missed you’,

stuck under the front door mat.

 

I’m sorry I missed him too.

I would have asked him on in,

told him to kick off his boots

& leave his scythe at the gate.

 

We would have had a catch-up;

maybe rolled up a number.

I’d tell him I was pissed off

at the friends he’d taken out.

 

Death would have – passing the joint –

agreed: it was just a job

he was sent here to do.

Then would ask, ‘What about you?’

 

Sam Hunt

Sam Hunt

Sam Hunt remains the most outstanding lyric writer in New Zealand verse. His first book of poems From Bottle Creek was published in 1969; his most recent book Salt River Songs was published in 2016. Sam was born in Castor Bay in 1946.

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