A MAN CAME INTO CASUALTY
(from a line from Danny Abse )

A man came into Casualty
complaining he was dead.
The doctor looked him up and down
but couldn’t find a head.

They couldn’t find a single arm,
they couldn’t find his spleen.
He must have been the most unlikely
man they’d ever seen.

They turned him over, looked on top,
then studied underneath.
They couldn’t find a pair of legs
nor yet a set of teeth.

There were no fingers or a thumb,
no stomach down below.
Without a skeleton at all
how could he come and go?

They never found a liver.
His heart refused to tick.
The veins were gone and all his skin.
It must have been a trick.

And still that man insisted,
“I tell you now, I’m dead.”
The doctor stood and listened
to every word he said.

They never saw that man again,
not even tiny specks.
It seems he wasn’t there at all.
The doctor shouted, “Next!”


30/5/04

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