I wish I could grieve for you
but you are a fading memory,
a ghost that still breathes
and whose profligate, reckless heart
still beats somewhere…
still, against his ribcage and in such a way
that each time I hear it
deep down in my D.N.A. I experience
an anger unbecoming
for what you have done
and the dark seeds of despair find a way
to nestle and take root
uncontrolled and unregulated
as I remember all that is between us,
blood and soul,
I lose the nerve to ring you, for what can I say
that you think you already don’t know
and I know deep down that at the times that I call, your phone
will be gently snoozing in time with your need for sleep, if honour
lets you close your eyes for a single minute.
Yet you know you are going to have to ring them,
even if it’s to arrange to crawl on your knees
and be penitent, surely remorseful and contrite
for why are they suffering
when you keep yourself out of sight.
We’ve all had that weasel on our backs at one time or another
but perhaps we haven’t dealt with it as gracefully
as a Woodpecker in flight.
This predator senses opportunity and attacks for gain
by offering only a platitude and the empty smile
and nothing else in return.
Whereas the badger, noble creature of the forest floor, set in its ways
and looking for all the world as a master of ethnic equality, sees the situation
in black and white and fights back against the weasel, but will probably