I do not want to be old before I am wise.
I do not want to see the world,
Through Daily Mail eyes.

I do not want to rant for young joy's removal.
I do not want that puckered mouth,
Of disapproval.

Lord, give me that kindly smile of toleration.
That slow turn of the head, that warmth,
Of moderation.

I will not rage against the dying of the light.
I do not mind going gentle,
Into that good night...

Where once the Aston Martin stood,
All thrusting power beneath the hood,
In rustic coach-house framed in wood,
When life was full and plump and good.

Now rests the dull Volvo Estate,
Capacious with its broad tail-gate,
Its usefulness commensurate,
With owners superannuate.

The children gone to here and there,
Their absence haunts the silent stair,
And only thou and I to share,
This long-house melancholy air.

When all life's joy before us waited,
Lust and loins yet unabated,
We little thought we could be fated,
To lives so dry, so desiccated.

Through youthful roads we raced and blasted,
We drained the cup while passion lasted,
We gorged on life and never fasted,
My God! Old age is such a bastard.

If love is hard to come by,
And passion at an end,
And timing wrong and gone by,
Then let me be your friend.

But if the heat yet smoulders,
And lust not yet took flight,
Drape your ankles from my shoulders,
My love, be mine tonight.

Old Eve, she took a tumble,
And ever since it's 'bin,
Opinion far from humble,
That it was woman's sin
That made our lives so dreadful,
And lived with so much pain,
The priests stuffed all our heads full
Of woman's guilt and shame.

But if you think about it,
It doesn't quite ring true,
'Cos Adam was a geezer and
That serpent, he was too...
...and so was God (they tell us)
Yet His will wasn't done,
Eve's evil won while woman was
Outnumbered three to one.

Now maybe Adam and the snake,
Approved by Him above,
Joined forces down below and gave
That poor old Eve a shove?

The girls with posterior wiggles,
Are confident, youthful and proud,
Their fluttering eyes and their giggles,
Induce passions but-rarely avowed,
But eschewing base sexual harassment,
Our lust must be furtive and cowed,
The feminist gains have alas meant,
We roosters may not crow out loud!

But Don Juan need not worry unduly,
The species must still reproduce,
But the rule of the unruly gooly's,
Been replaced due to years of abuse;
Like the reign of the oestrus before it,
It's redundant, we new men must now,
Hunt by stealth, beguilement and more wit,
If those furrows we still wish to plough!

Once, there were answers for all questions.
We had our shamans, witch-doctors, our priests,
Of myth and magic; oracles, even our kings.
These knew all we'd ever need to know,
And what they didn't, they told us they did.
And we believed, so in those things at least,
We were content.

Then came knowledge, and now the questions,
We asked of ourselves.  We knew so much more,
Than our guides had ever know, each man his own priest,
And with our wisdom came paradox,
And doubt, the knowledge that the more we knew,
The less we understood, of what we were.
Are we content?

Now, I need help with my own questions.
I envy you, you happy band at ease,
In your old dispensations.  But for all your faith,
I know that your answers are not those,
I seek.  My guides must be those like myself,
Who still ask the questions without answers.
Never content.

When I with furtive gesture,
Shyly slip my heart upon my sleeve
(of carefully chosen, slimming shirt or top)
For you alone (so many yous) to see.
To see or glimpse, so surreptitious, fleeting
Is my offering to you.

You (so many yous) will smile
Condescending kindly,
Then bruise or brush it, broken to the floor
and step on it .....
(or over it, passing on, avoiding it,
like a dog turd on a pavement).

Today the pain was worse than yesterday's,
(though all of ours were not so sad as these);
But I know prouder roles in other plays,
So could you find an understudy please?
I love you but no further time can waste,
And pray my patience was not misconstrued,
I'll wait no more for failure's bitter taste,
My chase is o'er, now shall I be pursued?
We ne'er can lose which things are truly ours,
And you could always own my faithful heart,
But I have tried the limit of my powers,
Yet in your new-found strength have lost my part.

One word from you will bring me bounding back,
Strength in conviction did I ever lack.

Over-washed, the pale, flat sky threatens an imprisoned land,
Trembling like a straight razor on the edge of life;
The desperate bile yellows of a bulging, pregnant spring,
Hurl up the fevered, frantic, screaming larks:
Spring bursts with death and misunderstanding.

Like maggots swarming, writhing from a wound,
Life bubbles from the dead, cold land
Into the cruellest, most vicious of times:
The madness of this forlorn hope waking
Shrieks and moans: thus the eternal cycle binds.

Winter whittles and wastes, but waits for spring
To wield its scythe, cut down an earlier harvest;
The Pale Deceiver winnows the weak, to pay for all that comes.
She wears her false smile of life and hope renewed
And hides from all, the assassin's secret blade.

What you said this morning, about a hunter's love,
Ending with a tender kill, a falcon on a dove,
Reminded me of older loves, of prey that fell before,
Who in the brief and fiery fall sustained my love no more.

But now, as once or twice before, the scent is different, strange,
And I am not the hunter.  The roles are subtly changed,
And though I'm bound to follow your fresh, alluring spoor,
My vision sees you swiftly turn with dripping, lupine jaws.

If I say it's forever, I mean it whoever
Thou art,
But things change so fast, you may not be the last
In my heart.

I'd like to be constant
And free from the hot scent
Assailing my senses all round,
But always those eyes,
Those lips and those thighs,
Have me baying and pawing the ground.

This fire in my loins
For those feminine groins
Holds me captive, will not set me free,
From testosterone's course
On this wild, bucking horse,
Let me off!  Let me rest!  Let me be!

You both know why I'm not,
But I so wish I was,
There.
But I had to give way,
As before I was not,
There.
But if you knew the truth,
You'd insist that I was,
There.
And if you knew the truth,
You'd prefer she was not,
There.
But you can't know the truth,
As back when I was not
There...
She was.