Uploaded November 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
APPENDIX ON THE HEALTH
By P B Taylor
There she lay all quiet so alone
Attached that gnawing ghostly pain
Just mouthing some sacred futile moan
And gasped why suffer again
Doctors, yes, they were all agreed
A day’s death was a nothing
Symptoms of course never agreed
Never a kind consuming sort of thing
And it was awful so bloody
Heart captured with a massive pride
Its death so sore and ruddy
Not passionate just cruel as she died
Her burst was a mere and final defeat
An excuse so pathetic but always complete
Cambridge. Sidney Sussex. Spring 1976
Phillip Taylor MBE was born in Amersham and educated at London University and the Inns of Court School of Law. His working life was spent, firstly at the BBC in London, in the Ministry of Defence and the Army, and then as a barrister at law and mediator at Lincoln’s Inn after he was called to the Bar.
He was Chairman of the Society of Civil Service Authors Poetry Workshop from 1982 to 1986 and contributed to their annual anthology FOCUS. His poems and short stories have appeared in journals, magazines and newsletters and some have been broadcast by the BBC. He has produced several poetry collections since 1972.
The Poetry Workshop was founded by Bill Barnes in 1970. It was a part of the Society of Civil Service Authors (founded in 1935) which now known as the Society of Civil and Public Service Writers.
APPENDIX ON THE HEALTH
By P B Taylor
There she lay all quiet so alone
Attached that gnawing ghostly pain
Just mouthing some sacred futile moan
And gasped why suffer again
Doctors, yes, they were all agreed
A day’s death was a nothing
Symptoms of course never agreed
Never a kind consuming sort of thing
And it was awful so bloody
Heart captured with a massive pride
Its death so sore and ruddy
Not passionate just cruel as she died
Her burst was a mere and final defeat
An excuse so pathetic but always complete
Cambridge. Sidney Sussex. Spring 1976
Phillip Taylor MBE was born in Amersham and educated at London University and the Inns of Court School of Law. His working life was spent, firstly at the BBC in London, in the Ministry of Defence and the Army, and then as a barrister at law and mediator at Lincoln’s Inn after he was called to the Bar.
He was Chairman of the Society of Civil Service Authors Poetry Workshop from 1982 to 1986 and contributed to their annual anthology FOCUS. His poems and short stories have appeared in journals, magazines and newsletters and some have been broadcast by the BBC. He has produced several poetry collections since 1972.
The Poetry Workshop was founded by Bill Barnes in 1970. It was a part of the Society of Civil Service Authors (founded in 1935) which now known as the Society of Civil and Public Service Writers.
