i’m ready to entertain my f*ck it all years
My better angels called
They’ll be out sick today
And tomorrow
and the year after that and the year after that
Corners will be cut
Feelings will be hurt
Money will be spent
But not spent at the same rate as yesteryear
The pace will slow
The intensity will build
The aggravation will grind
But I won’t stand still for long
for this
forever
I’m ready to be unpleasantly surprised
to be the last one through the door
reaching for a mop and a bucket
to clean up someone else’s mess
save the rancor for another time
when I’ll luxuriate over every word
over every line
over what it meant and how and why
No one else would raise a hand to help
I’m ready to dig through mountains of paper
I’m ready to burry the past
To relent to the inviolable truth
And submit to the intolerable act
(Of being older.)
What shakes me of my belief today
Will make me believe tomorrow
When the priest raised voice to look away
Where the beast from within was to burrow.
I will not act my age
I will NOT act my age
I WILL NOT ACT MY AGE I will not relent
I will not become one of those
One of those who cower
One of those who hedge
One of those who settle
Settle
Settle
Settle
Fettle
Kettle
Boil the tea and pour it out
And pour it out
And pour it out all over me.
I will not show my age
I will only show my smile
The smile that hides the things I know
And hide the things I have done
How can I entertain your stories of grandeur and grace
Of eventful days and torrid nights
Of eventless days and torpid nights
You fcking fraud!
You pastiche of the things I left un did
Not un done – un did
I did them and then I did them back to the point where they were no longer complete.
Look on them you fcking fraud
Use your greatness to show me how you would do different or better
F*ck it – use your youth to show me how you’ll do it
Or better yet – keep your words in your mouth and your thoughts in your brain
And never for one second put yourself in the place I used to be
In the roles I used to run
In the lives I used to run from
Into the life I lived.
Look on me now – busted into pieces
None are solid on their own
Like a puzzle with no corners
You need to step back and see it whole.
Here in the hinterlands of the f*ck it all years
No sunrise and no sunset
No east or north or south or west
Just an old man and his memories
The bitter sting of good intentions
The longing lust of unspent time
Filtered through the sweat of toil
Fck it all – I’m done with this.
Avert your eyes for fear of something ugly
But judge me not unless you know it well yourself.
Fck it all – what strength I have betrayed me
To start this now and never know it done
I swear I thought I knew the ending would be here.
Fck it all – you better angels
Smug like hoods with folded hands
I could have used those hands and got only middle fingers.
Fck it all – you can start to strip me barren
Take the things I have because you like them so
F*ck it all – don’t strip – just have them
Just take them
Wear them with pride
Your pride and my pride
But never once say you made them
For it was I who pass them down
Who cast them down
Who let them go.
7/30/26
Read it. Don’t read it. I don’t really care anymore.