THE PEARLY GATE TAVERN
(This poem is dedicated to my cousin "Biggles")
It came with the news of your passing, that sudden rush of loss and despair;
That mourning and grief which flows through you, and the cry that it just isn't fair.
The sadness that just overwhelms you, when Death has been making his call;
Even to those used to his visits, if one can get "used to" at all:
Oh we never will question the Big Boss, 'cos we know it's all for the best;
But sometimes it's hard to imagine how he sorts out the good from the rest.
It must be hard for St Peter when he takes his list up each day;
As he knows how hard that it will be, for the mates of those taken away:
But take heart and I'll tell you of the pub up there on the track;
As you pass through the pearly gates up there and know that you're not going back.
"Just throw your swag in the corner," says Pete, "as you go through the gates;
And I think if you look 'round the bar room, you'll find a whole mob of mates ":
Well your mates are there in vast numbers, why the crowd, it goes on and on;
And none need 'ere to fall into slumbers, as the crowd reveilles with jokes and with song.
The long since dearly departed clamour there at the Hotel Pearly Gate;
As they party eternally onwards, the place where it never gets late:
Of course there's Father and Mother; they've always been patient and true;
There at the end of that long line of shadows, they've been waiting, with old cobbers, for you.
The list of friends and relations goes on forever it seems;
All those you thought you'd lost forever, or only to meet in your dreams:
Well take it from me it's real certain, that the Big Boss is someone real grand;
And He welcomes his flock with a cold one, up there in that big Holy Land.
Peace there is of a plenty, where colour, race creed disappear;
And Jack is as good as his Master, not burdened with strife, like down here;
With one word of warning I'll leave you, to ponder what's there up ahead;
Be aware to the unjust or the greedy, the cruel and the evil it's said;
You mind the steps that you're taking, that dangerous path that you tread;
For someone must pick up the glasses, and someone must roll out the keg.
They say that Hell is a hot place, more like a furnace with blast;
And the ill-doers live there in torment, forever reflecting their past.
But in truth that's not their future, waiting on drunks is their lot;
As you party eternally onward, while they run around in the slop: