My Age

I wasn’t young when I arrived. Years pass,
And I just can’t get younger, though I’ve tried
Until my stomach hurt, my brains were fried,
And passers-by looked like they all had gas.
I thought of paying for a Catholic mass,
But when they look at me, the bishops hide
In those old bolt-holes, and pretend they died
When I observe them through the one-way glass.

So here I am, progressively grown older,
Unlike my closest friends, who all stayed young
And beautiful. The songs the men had sung
Drew women, priests, and archers. I got colder,
As salty tears dripped softly to my shoulder,
But only once they’d dribbled from my tongue.

We Come and Go

Your entry on my arm gave me cachet,
Which I delighted in, revelled, abused,
Made merry with, after Valentine’s Day,
Until you criticized me, unamused,
And I became extremely circumspect,
Kowtowing to my critics, playing ball,
Assuring their position: the elect,
The chosen, those who mattered most of all,
But you thought I had turned too serious,
That people missed my jokes; you chose to run,
So I became unhinged, sad and delirious,
And soon it was all done. I was undone.
I found myself beset, beaten, and banished;
The citizenry blamed me when you vanished.

Unimpressive Dross

A most basic examination shows
My life has been a panoply of loss,
Unwanted offers, unimpressive dross,
A long series of painful body blows,
Love gone awry, uninterrupted lows,
Burned bridges, rivers too icy to cross.
You chose that rich and dreary chunk of moss,
Knowing I loved you. Everybody knows.

So now you try insulting me like this?
One hour together, now? We could have had
A good life, not one stolen night. It’s sad,
An insult to all three of us, that kiss.
A rudimentary analysis
Shows my life to be nothing like that bad.

The Least Touch of Truth

What is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of. — George Gordon, Lord Byron

Her cheeks are hollow, like the bad man told us,
And her heart is empty, like the space between
The planets or the stars, but neither clean
Nor sweet-scented. She touched our hand, cajoled us
In that soporific voice that sold us
Dreams, sheer fictions with a dark, smooth sheen
And promises of love that she can’t mean,
But still those eyes without emotion hold us.

Fixating grimly on those hollow cheeks
In order to avoid turning to stone,
We think about our worst fears, which have grown
Into a darker mass, rising to peaks
Of horror when she laughs, and sighs, and speaks,
Because we’re terrified to be alone.