Spike Milligan and Poetry

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Spike Milligan wrote some very moving poems apart from the frivolous ... the following are some very personal poems …

Oberon

The flowers in my garden
grow down.
Their colour is pain
Their fragrance sorrow.
Into my eyes grow their roots
feeling for tears
To nourish the black
hopeless rose
within me.

Nervous breakdown, Bournemouth Feb 1967

Many of his poems concern humour and children and here is a more poignant poem ...

Growing Up II from The Mirror Running 1987 ...

Is that all there is? Goodbye!
After a million hellos
After all those bird-blessed mornings,
After the bubbling bath-time laughter,
After so many soul-searching Santa Claus,
After a million wild walks on the moors,
After the swing-swung laughing summers,
After the tear-drenched kiss-better bumped head,
After the new wear-them-in-bed red shoes,
After a tumult of timeless teddy bears,
After a delirium of dolls in prams,
After a rainbow of ice-creams,
After daddy I love you all the world -
Good-bye?

It is time to say goodbye, and a fitting goodbye, so finally from Spike ... an unpublished poem ...

How many good-byes?
When I was born
My mother took me from hospital
The nurses said good-bye
That was my first one.
I was too young to hear it
One day I will die.
Someone will say goodbye
And I still won't hear it

Monkenhurst
April 28 1987 0100 hrs

from The Compulsive Spike Milligan (Edited by Norma Farnes)