Latter Days

by Hugh Follet

Topsy-turvy and pell-mell,
Gracelessly we go to hell,
Waking blearily and farting,
Teeth and follicles departing,

Belly bulbous, jowls a-droop,
Phallus flat in one fell swoop;
Stripped randomly of our dear few:
The heroes, villains, whom we knew.

The kin. The fools. Beloved arms.
All soon line guts of grubs and worms
(That tubular expectant crew
Now clinking knives and forks for you.)

Charming prospect, eh, this brink?
But does it mean (as some may think)
As grey hairs mar and wrinkles jail
That there remain no 'cakes and ale'?

Cakes remain. And draft ale too.
Shaw, Keats, Peking Duck; the Blues;
Venison; a late quartet;
Dickens; a furtive cigarette.

Latter days need not be vile.
Nor our attitude servile.
Tit remains, though less of tat.
But also something more than that.

Past these failing eyes proceed
When I shut them, words and deeds
Multifoliate and grand.
I have seen a foreign land:

All the world that once had been.
Not images upon a screen,
But sharp and tart and bright as blows:
Time's real, not fantasmal, rose.

Now torn away by thieving breezes,
Still, the contemplation pleases.
Now the hours are my foe,
But in my mind the lost ones glow.

Old fortresses in disrepair
Sparkle when snowflakes linger there.
Winter is a lovely thing.
And after winter? Perhaps spring