An Increase in
Brevity
And I’m suddenly struck by the truth
That this is all, this is it
As good as it gets
Analyze that for a while
Take the faith of a child
Add a dash of the wild
Sensationalism of proof
Distill sensibly with disbelief
Gargle and spit then rinse for relief
And never imbibe it again.
Childhood should always come to an end
Though the ending is always too soon
Though in the end, there was no more room
In the inn, for an ending to begin, if it’s true.
Or perhaps that’s part of childhood too
Boys become men, or at least in stories they do
In real life, we’re more Peter Pan than we think
Except we never believed, save when we drink,
Anything at all.
We grew big, bigger at least, and sometimes grew tall
At other times we simply grew fat
From being precocious to being a brat
To be thrown on the grill of the gods
For summertime amusement.
We fight to save dignity, fight to save face
All the while pestering, forgetting our place
As fat in the fire
As lust to desire
To make the all-seeing eyes burn
A cog in the wheel that makes the world turn
A wanderer sent here to learn
How to turn it all off.
We’re festering
Sequestering ourselves in groups
In troops of unequal numbers
Yet similar tasks
Men without masks
For we have no true faces
Step apart at ten paces
Turn, jagged parts in their places
And smooth edges have graced us
With these.
A minute of temple and freeze
A second of stillness and breeze
A time of silence and peace
As we bring the world to it’s knees.
Feted, dank and sewered
Pendulant until skewered
On the tip of a bet
On the end of a net
Without a safety for comfort
Without a face to contort
We bribe and we bluff
But it’s never enough
Till we wager the skin off our souls
And down at the flop
We gamble our top
To keep our pants at the turn
And hope is still spurned
As with a prayer to the giver
We look to the river.
And hope to build a dam.
