For my parents
It’s twenty twenty-four; I’m forty-nine,
and sometimes I think about my death;
but what I really want is to tell my kids
that at some point life will contradict them,
yet they have to plan and then carry out that plan;
that this will happen again and again,
and that their kids, if they have them,
will not believe them either.
I happened. I happened to them just as my birth happened to me.
Inevitably, neither of us were prepared for the many regrets
that come with the territory. No wonder I was too old to be young
and later tried to compensate with a nuclear family of my own.
I remember books, lots of books, and the librarian looking at me
with suspicious disbelief as I put another stack on the counter,
so I resorted to a trick, signing up for all the libraries in town.
I wish I had been as cunning with the bullies in the neighbourhood.
Then came puberty, with its teenage acne and masturbation on the couch
under a kitschy reproduction of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa.
I even got a taste of adolescent rebellion—for a whole week or so,
until I got home from boarding school and my father saw my Mohawk.
Adulthood turned out to be not as exciting as I thought it would be.
Well, except for a few acronyms I had to learn along the way
—some we all had to know, even if without much commitment,
some I experienced first-hand—MRI being the latest.
Whether it is a touchscreen, a typewriter, or a vintage fountain pen, alone
is a five-letter word. But I’ve found that focussing on the writing implements
helps forget about that disturbing detail.
To think, a measly five characters could encompass my entire state of being.
Frankly, I’d rather be single. At least then I would attract condemnation,
not pity.
If a twopenny game is truly what it is, why do we cling to life so tightly,
and what compels us to bring yet more players? Could it be nature’s fault
for imprinting in us this insatiable thirst? Even so, greed is our own breed,
nurtured over millennia among the volumes of sonnets that fill the shelves
of the slaughterhouse.
I miss the comfort of ‘not yet,’ when everything was a possibility
that could easily become irrelevant if only shouting ‘hold your horses!’
to the offspring of impatience and thirst proved to be anything
but a fool’s errand. But nature knows no respect, and there was no moé
that could save me from what I had left behind in the muddy trenches.
Now the late life of mine is but a mere hindrance, leaving a bitter aftertaste
that occasionally soils my otaku path to the Shangri-la of demise.
If there were a healing cream for the soul,
like the one I use for eczema, perhaps I could stop scratching the itch
after you left (you weren’t expecting anything more, like pain, let alone despair, were you?).
Oh well, the occasional rom-com or dramedy will do instead, I guess.
After all, sometimes it takes more courage to step back from life
than to cling to the roles it imposes.
How kind of me to drop a tenner into the battered polystyrene cup
of that poor bloke sleeping on the pavement outside the bank!
Don’t believe me? Check out my last tweet.
How kind of me to help the new guy at work,
even though he is so incompetent that he would be better off doing something else,
but he never listens to me on the latter!
How kind of me to always put so much thought into the presents
I give my relatives and friends! Like last Christmas, when I gave my older sister
‘The Essential Atkins for Life Kit.’
And speaking of life-enhancing writing, isn’t it kind of me
to share my life experience,
and all for free?
Sorry, mate, but it’s not—it’s all condescending.
My mistress, the soul, has never transcended
her affair with my ever-decaying soma,
like an old lady to the bitter end watering flowers
on her abusive husband’s grave. And yet, as I learn
old man tricks—an afternoon game of dominoes
and speaking fluent pigeon—and can curb my urges,
she still insists on one more shot at l’amour vrai.
Perhaps a tad of The Swan of Avon will do the trick.
After all, nothing soothes the soul like a verse
after a day of debauchery.
It must have been an oversight when he said: harm no others.
Didn’t he rather mean: harm no one? But it makes sense
when you think about it, because it gives us back the freedom
that the gods we created have robbed us of.
What we do with it, though, is a whole other story.
hidden pilcrow 