Unlike Thee Athenian
Those rarer men I once fondly
knew...
Many dead now...
What remains of them they are so
Few.
Am I to die when numbered
Amongst the last?
Old and bent, pale and withered;
Thin fingers grasped
Like a hawks talons upon the
Smooth knob of a lacquered stick;
My few remaining hairs, as grey
As Novembers morn, oiled and
Combed sideways over...well...
Whatever small amount will be left
Of it!
Surely that cannot be
What advancing age holds for one
Such as me?
Then a portly figure stuffed like
A drawn-up sack;
Crouched forward and painfully
Shuffling; stooped, like encumbered
Atlas, with the weight of woeful
Lamentations heaped across my
Crooked back.
Never! For, and knowing no man, with
Any amount of certainty, may choose
His end,
On my steadfast will would'st rather
To depend:-
When refusing advancements
Proffered from the Grim Reapers
Gnawing malaise and begotten ills;
Also, with all caution, avoiding
That deceitful Twilight that so
Beguilingly spills...
Over lengthening shadows at close
Of day;
Thusly recalling there was, long
Ago, an Athenian, who, to his
Deficit, in a greatly foolish and
Disastrous way,
Practised un-natural munificence;
His bane, Apemantus, the cynic,
Whilst loudly admonishing his
Charity, cruelly heaping upon him
In all manner of rebuking offence!
And, notwithstanding hesitant
Modesty, let it hereby be duly
Mentioned that I too, undoubtedly,
Can somewhat compare against a
Not inconsiderable measure of
Intelligence and wit;
In the mind's eye to construct
Momentary abstractions, that,
Loosely interconnected, the swift
Instance might briefly fit;
For do we not all strive to
Produce the same?
To induce the many shades of an
Evasive nuance into the fleeting
Semblance of an illuminated frame?
Once a distinguished man wrote :-
That whomsoever
Toiled industriously at a couple of
Lines...was to work harder than all
Those involved with much
Laboured effort and hard physical
Endeavour.
Resolved, therefore, in this
Moment of fortitude, ex post facto,
A part of myself to newly
Re-invent...
Before the lessening years are
Solely wasted upon the countless
Alters of good intent.
It is done! Let this then be my
Stated pledge: that I shall call
On all dead poets for their
Creative rage -
To help fashion rhyming ink onto
A blank and crisp white page!
Although I have neither Lofty
Blake's
Hammered anvil nor the fantastic
Clay of common Yeats;
No matter - I have enough!
Unto their evasive Muse I
Therefore propose, before my fuel
Runs dry,
To aspire to reinvigorate...as if
An ailing comet whose roaring
Clamour, ferociously reignited,
Burning a trail through the frozen
Fields of an ice filled sky!
And, long hence the pen drops
From this aged and palsied hand,
Under the blazing winds of those
Sapphire fields - raising high my
Standard! A tattered rag, amidst
A salient, in the heart of this
Desolated and near abandoned
Wasteland.
Until, shattered, like countless
Shards of a broken comet,
That discarded verse
Lies with my mouldering bones...
Wrapped in the comforting
Blanket of the tight brown earth.
Copyright © John Fleming | Year Posted 2017
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