The numbered years now equal
the year when they began,
and making notes with pint and smoke
I am that peevish holotype,
a jaundiced also-ran.
Who, waging war against decline
of mental arithmetic,
calculates mean speed from mileage
in rummaged margins found:
my pocket diary rubric.
This is not to mention skills
in map-reading. Still less the rot
of nouns press-ganged to verbs
and moral obligation to recycle
each last yoghurt pot.
Or sudden nostalgia for stuff
extinct: telephones made from string.
Coal bunkers, gabardine macs,
slide rules and sealing wax –
is nothing worth forgetting?
Sore eyes struggle to frame it all,
with softening focus begin
to accommodate the tide,
receding with hair-line
as favourite jumpers too wear thin.
And plan to leave my body
to science got rejected –
like part-decoded item
in the bagging area,
its scan was unexpected.
Unstable with drink one-legged
I play spin bowler’s flight;
pay back the cost of my overs
in late order singles, eked out
by cloth-eared guile of hindsight.
My fingerprints are lines
haunted by mixed metaphor;
they strive for purpose of turbine blades
yet come to savour, as old men do,
life’s bitter flavour.
iii.2013
'Dancing outside the box' - with thanks to Audi Maserati
Constructing this was purgatory. It represents a clearing out, with the intention of fun at my own expense, of disparate half-notions accumulated over ... well, the original working title was 'Inconsistency at Fifty'!
ReplyDeleteEarly on I determined that a strict rhyme pattern (and tight control of syllables per stanza) was the means to make these hang-ups hang together. But, as I wrestled my way to the finishing line, that constraint generated its own darker and more surreal tone.
I can't say I care much for the result, though it is a relief to have despatched the beast before another birthday passes. Perhaps the exercise in poetic discipline had value. As to the veracity of the picture painted, I'll leave those who know me to judge ...