Poem For The Last Days

POEM FOR THE LAST DAYS

So that’s what this is for then, this writing,
she discloses – without hesitation –
when, at last, finally, I think to ask
(wondering, unbelievably almost,
why I never thought to wonder before);
this complex histrionic roundelay.

We love to perform this conjuring trick,
the musey lady and I, hand in glove,
again and again, whenever we choose.
A sprinkling of magic words and Presto!
The exhausted familiar transformed
to à la carte resplendent effulgence.

No fear of lapsing into hoggishness;
rather we’d have even willing strangers
share in helping us celebrate again
the birth and rebirth of our wayward child,
this fantastical origination of ours;
another dissembling layer pared free.

Will you, won’t you, dear mobsters, join the dance?
Sense has yet to ever become common;
it is marking time still till the moment
you slow your madcap barely human race.
Disabuse yourselves; the final frontier’s
not outer space but rather inner time.

You’ve managed to plant a flag on the moon
yet seem unable to feed the starving.
Pigs at the trough and lambs to the slaughter.
“Stop, stop, you can’t take us here. There are rules.
We know what we like. We like what we know.
We don’t want it spoilt with this sort of thing.”

Another pistol whipping. Who’s counting?
Play on! The perfect pair flex their muscles.
So take your partners and not your bearings.
Let’s be done with avoiding avoidance.
Fiddles away! Drab Hamelin is boring.
Let’s dance on. Nearer my Nero to thee.
…..
…..
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We live in a time and place where seriously worrying things are happening. What is the place of poetry in that world?