Alastair Spate: ‘Warnie’

Warnie
September 13, 1969, Melbourne
March 4, 2022, Ko Samui island, Thailand

Tell us how the great Prince died.
We’ve only shots of his smokes, unsexed sheets,
The best breasts on the island, arriving.
A sole condom; his tailor’s receipts.

There was no Showman’s last show, no new
Magic fluke from his flat southern suburbs,
Or gambler’s tell, why this self-minded man
Should die alone with a million lovers.

With the one-eyed will of forearm and wrist
That attacked the impossible, one who
Laughed with it later; loved making us dream
Being him, praised the failed best we could do.

Instead, he was downsized to a Mister,
Home ground half-emptied by absurdist laws,
Males his age gabbling like merely old men.
The dreams agree: he would’ve lived to be bored.

Who owned his own years; he takes them and goes.
Left with this next world, we’ll need to know why
In the great moment time turns against them—
That’s how the great Princes die.

Alastair Spate