Latest works, Poetry list
down and out?
you walked down 26
stairs and out of 23
technically so stricken
you were about to die
taken straight into
resuscitation but
never giving up this
was the ebb tide
of mortality but a
triumph of love over
coming months and
years of pain and
recent days of agony
but the greatest un
spoken torture was
the parting the
separation of imm
inent death and
the seeming supp
osed silence and
darkness that swallow
us all at our end
another two days
it was real forceful
tangible love that
sang over the life
support pumps and
the burble and bustle
of a ward your eyes
filled with an imm
ensity that made
this life so small but
every person so
precious and the
end came like a
cadenza leading
into an unending
music a drama
of subsiding energy
and struggle through
a calm a stasis of
waiting and pre
paration for a
triumph of what
we record as the
last note you rose
and stared into
a tomorrow I will
never know until
my
heart
stops
but really
beats for
ever
© Neil Thompson 2026