Alexander R. “Lex” Fullarton

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:

©Copyright August 2003 by Alexander R. “Lex” Fullarton