Forty

Then as you turn a decade older,
The heart turns ten degrees colder;
The outward smile warps inward now,
The lines deepen the widened brow.
Age has taught much as it should,
Have you learnt as much as you could?
Are there newer hurts left to feel?
Are there newer hopes left to reveal?
Is there time left for parched lips to kiss?
Is there anything left for you to miss?
Do the rhymes fail and fall blank
Into talent that was never frank?
Smiles are ready. Regrets are uncertain.
Loss made sure all rules lay broken.
As you move from white and black to grey,
Fuck what you do and hear and say.
People are never who they appear,
In time you know, they will all disappear;
Hands that held yours were just hotter air –
Tragic; but belief taught you despair.
This air flows in and out much like breath,
It will flow on, perhaps until death.
Smile, though what you feared would surely hold,
Turn rusting iron into molten gold.
Wear the coronet and rise and shine.
You won you with the passage of time.

How many

How many heartbreaks are officially required
To crucify this heart on the pillars of the soul?
How many ineffective words of love need transpire
To appease vanity before it destroys it whole?

How many worthless tears must be pitifully shed
To wash dry memory’s sordid, miserable past;
And with the heart pronounce her equally dead
So neither does the other thankfully outlast?

How many rusted nails need be rammed into sinew,
For the pain to deaden, for the agony to end?
And must it be such a spectacle in public view,
With no respect left with either enemy or friend?

The Human Farce

The soul choking has long since died
With whatever gods there may be,
Not one tear has said to have lied
Nor will unto eternity.

The fates have laughed and laughed so hard
That their insides have torn up mine,
They seem to have played each card
So well and even won from time.

The news of humanity’s farce
Has blackened all of weak hope,
That was taken from some god’s arse
With no guarantee of any scope.

Humans lie and cheat and kill,
No one thinks of the world now,
And there can’t be any chance still
For even Man’s defeatist bow.

The strong survive as the weak sink,
No chance for a romantic mind;
Who has the time to feel or think
Who has the time to look behind?

But you must and I speak to you
Let go of your belief and try,
Give love a chance and hope, too,
Hold them now, though they die.