Not too cheery Max just eat and be merry -it could be fun
P elderly P
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Max Richards
Sent: 19 September 2012 12:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: 'Flat Chat'
Flat Chat
Procrastination
keeps me busy -
flat out.
Cras - Latin
for tomorrow -
*that* morrow -
'eat, drink, and
be merry, for
tomorrow we die' -
that's just hyperbole
for the unknown day
coming our way,
which right now I find
easy without drink
to deny.
Postpone that
we surely would
if only we could.
My mood is still:
why should tomorrow
differ from yesterday
and the one we're in - today?
Like Ted Hughes's hawk,
I want to keep things this way.
Sufficient unto the -
etcetera -
and inertia
seems to keep down,
or back, the dark stuff
referred to.
Tomorrow may just
bring me more
to postpone.
Already I'm way overdue
for dentist,
eye specialist,
hairdresser
even. Delay may mean
fewer teeth, less hair,
less sight, even,
to ask them to save.
We don't see eye to eye,
specialists and me,
subsidising their
golfing holiday.
So, others are out
and about
while I'm at home,
feet up,
resting my eyes,
blinds down -
why go out
where all are busy?
as if what makes
the world go round
is business -
mere busyness.
It did pause for me,
that world of yours,
when I jumped off.
I soon adjusted,
called my time past
time wasted.
Yet I miss the spectacle,
as well as new spectacles.
I miss the parade
of young and hopeful,
intense, beautiful;
a quiet stroll
may let me recall
what it is to yearn,
to work, play, and earn.
Theirs is the present.
It will come soon enough,
the unpostponable.
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