\nWill this meeting ever end?<\/p>\n
No.<\/p>\n
What are we saying goodbye to?<\/p>\n
Everything.<\/p>\n
Is the wrong person in charge?<\/p>\n
Yes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Because surprise parties can kill,
\nespecially in the over eighties,
\na new way of surprising has been devised,
\napproved by health advisors.<\/p>\n
The celebrant tiptoes into the room \u2013
\nthis averts heart attacks among her friends \u2013
\nwhile they, in reply,
\nleap imperceptibly from their seats
\nwhispering surprise surprise
\nwithout any kind of punctuation.<\/p>\n
Everybody has their hearing aids off
\nand nobody dies.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In my last minutes I would like to forego
\nthe angelic host and instead stand on any road I know,
\nnot as that road is now, but three or five hundred years ago.<\/p>\n
Between the end of this world and the start of that,
\nI\u2019d like to watch handsewn shoes carry a handtied sack
\nalong a route I half-recognise, now a sandy track.<\/p>\n
What I have in mind is no wires, no stuff to throw away; <\/p>\n It\u2019s a bit hazy now, but we remember that:<\/p>\n someone peed on her feet to keep them warm and one of you found a new-born baby in the morning tide; Many of you say: \u2018I\u2019ve never told anyone this before\u2019 Speak. This is the listening Olympics, Q&A for an unfair world Will this meeting ever end? No. What are we saying goodbye to? Everything. Is the wrong person in charge? Yes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[379,380],"tags":[388],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nOnly an isn\u2019t that?<\/em> rock beside a surely that\u2019s?<\/em> shore:
\nthe place I live now, but never seen before. <\/p>\nThe listening Olympics<\/h5>\n
\nWe\u2019ve heard it all before
\nbut even so, we ask for more.<\/p>\n
\nsomeone\u2019s so clever he only has one friend
\nsomeone looked in rubbish bins for a book
\nsomeone wore a miniskirt while reporting a riot
\nsomeone stopped a mugger by asking how he was
\nsomeone has an unusually high number of Neanderthal genes
\nsomeone hit his wife for wanting a hot water tap in the kitchen<\/p>\n
\nyou held her against your breast; she lives.<\/p>\n
\nor: \u2018Why am I telling you this?\u2019<\/p>\n
\nThere is no end to what we can take in at one sitting.
\nWe have had many hearings; we no longer discriminate.<\/p>\n
\nyou are team South Africa
\nand this is your captain,
\nlistening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"