A Depressing Thought

I heard a rumour that the proper realms of poetry are Love and Death. Well, I’m only twenty-three, so I won’t be talking about death. And I find myself under an encroaching suspicion that love operates in a similar manner to memory. When you remember an experience you are not remembering an experience. You’re recalling the latest recollection of that experience. Like a photograph of a photograph of a photograph. No matter how good the camera, you’re still haemorrhaging pixels. What if love is the same? You get one shot. And every subsequent love is a sketch of the first. the sketch may have been done in a steady hand, with a Blackwing on paper of 120gsm. But it’s a sketch nonetheless. It’s taken from a model.

Longevity

I am going to live to 150;

No one believes me, but I will.

I’ll see my great-great-grandkids born

And squeeze the sprites into my will.

I’ll fill with letters an escritoire,

Each signed by the hand that scratches the arse

That sags upon the royal throne

Like a funeral falling into farce.

I’ll visit the deathbeds of all my chums

And bid them fair adieu:

“See you in 70 years my friend,

And sorry about the feeding tube.”