Poets love it
The beauty of decay
The undoing of a thing
Entropy having its way
No matter the will
—
But it's always appreciated
From outside
—
It is my contention
And go ahead and revoke my poets license
If you must
But decay is considerably less beautiful
From within
—
The daily inventory
What's hurting today
Same old pain
Or something new
And mysterious
—
The constant ailments
Some diagnosed
Others more cryptic
Reducing the base goal
To simply getting through the day
—
The memory of life
With a working body
Grows brighter in hindsight
Youth wasted on the young
Same as it ever was
—
And it gets worse
That's the kicker
This isn't as bad
As it will get
Before the end
—
It all creates a frantic panic
In my unceasing mind
Which has so many plans still
So many things yet untried
And unfinished
—
It knows time is running out
And it pushes my body
Stop resting
Keep on doing
Before you can't
—
Yet the pushing
The relentless doing
Only hastens the decline
I know this
I know this
—
I live in fear
Of a deathbed moment
The clock stopping at last
And I have to put down pencil and paper
And see what my life amounted to
—
I know myself well enough
To be sure
That all I have done
The vast pile of my works and deeds
Will pale beside those left undone
—
I fear my own judgment
Accosting every slow moment
For subtracting from the sum total
Of the catalog
The body that won't decay
—
Foolish, of course
For art also has a lifespan
Most barely survives the artist
Little of it passes
The century mark
—
But if I'm gone
I won't know that
—
I am living for that one moment
The final one
Hoping for salvation
From myself
The only judge
Who has ever really mattered
—
And he is a picky bastard
—
So I'm asking nicely
Please spare me the paeans
To fading light
You'll find them less profound
When it's you on the downslope
—
And while I can
I will chase the capricious ghosts
The muses omnipresent and elusive
And defend my right to burn out
Before I fade away
—
Increasingly
That flame is all there is
To keep me alive