DECADENCE

 

The decay consumes me,

the constant erosion of the solid,

all shape in slow flux.

Wind whips, rain batters, air dissolves,

light fractures as much as it illuminates.

Everything from the screech of brakes

to the sidewalk underfoot

is in the corrupting pay of time.

I sit alone in a quiet room

yet still my molecules bombard each other,

a billion rounds in my head,

even my toes, a war zone.

And day, that great over-achiever.

can’t resist the overwhelming night.

I’m a day myself.

The sun within me is counting down the hours.

Everything is unrelenting,

is designed to be what it isn’t now.

Get over it. somebody says.

Or spend more time with the eternal.

Like the sea for instance –

those waves constantly remaking shore,

rubbing rocks the wrong way,

spitting out carcasses.

Or the stars –

wonderful glowing hearth-fires

but no wood-pile in reserve.

Everything is matter – that’s the issue here.

It cannot be created or destroyed.

But despaired of –

now that’s another story.