The last time that I saw him - for The Poetry Bus

Like the government, I got this one wrong. I thought it was from the menu of great prompts which 120 Socks put out for this week's Poetry Bus ride. It wasn't, but perhaps I can argue that it's very like them. At any rate, I'm grateful, because by means of it I have been enabled to write the poem I thought I would never write.

You'd never see him but
his cap was on his head.

At meal times it was there -
even at Ascot and
in bed, it was in place.

Ask how he was: "Hard up
and happy, mate!" he'd say.

Not so, when we last met!
Somehow, the phrase had died.

All that was left of him,
it seemed, was that old cap.

It still sat on his head,
and in addition he
had on a too-big shirt,
blue striped, with a long tail.
That was his full attire.
He'd nothing else to wear.

There was no dignity,
the geriatric ward
was sparse, ill cared for, soiled.

They blamed anaemia
(of the pernicious kind)
for all the change in him.
His memory was shot.

Drugged, he hardly knew us,
but knew he was in Epsom
"Where all the horses are!"

Roaming the ward to find
his best binoculars,
last time I saw him he'd
become half stranger, half
the Grandad I had known.