The last one

a poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Try to dress with care,
press my only suit and polish dusty shoes
for the funeral of my last friend.
Can’t find a mournful tie
spray-paint a yellow one black
while thinking of the silly way he had died;
drowning in his own vomit.
Mind it would have been worse
if it had been someone else’s.
Try a wry smile! fail.
Only a few will attend the ceremony,
drunks got few friends
and I will have to help carry the coffin and that’s Ok.
‘A nice bloke when sober,
a very funny bloke when half drunk
and a bloody nuisance when pissed.’ His epitaph.
My own loneliness is a steppe cold wind
that grasps at my heart,
he was the last one now
I’ll have to drink alone.