Portrait of the Poet as an Old Man
He reflects on drafts of dreadful drivel
Time passes quickly before his sore eyes
On his hands the skin seems slowly to shrivel
He feels a finger – in time a digit dies
How death looms large in later life
Tinged and singed by trouble and strife
He sighs “if age, alone, could make one wise.”
Manuscript has long ceded to the keyboard’s sound
And miraculous music now unmuted
No longer does his work break any new ground
To an ever-smaller readership it seems suited
For his years have allowed him to no longer care
Whether sight of his verse makes them stop and stare
Or if more or less followers can be recruited
It takes cold courage to continue to write
When there is no need to earn reward
Convinced he must appear to fight the good fight
To depict the pen mightier than anyone’s sword
And that one writer’s poetry is another man’s prose
A story whose meaning no-one ever knows
In some book that nobody wants to afford
There was an epoch when all this was pure passion
Surrounded by people revelling in his art
No need to heed the followers of fashion
Amongst the unread one can always seem smart
But reality strikes when least expected
Though there may be no reason or rhyme rejected
Self-image and reflection at last drift apart
Frequently he thought the moment arrived
When someone, somewhere had seen some light
Amongst the darkness where doom has thrived
Seeping through the latest literary night
From whence a spark of talent or skill
Like a bird of prey swooping in for the kill
Would descend, just once, to make his writing right
Existence always gives way to another state
Of mind or body – one cannot know
But he dwells upon his poetry’s fate
Forever and ever will continue the show
For what is held within one reader’s mind
Will remain for a future generation to find
To ensure his demise will be long and slow
Now he hears the discomforting sound
Of those who would literary rebellion ban
Those who say that true art can know no bound
Yet criticise expression that follows a plan
He reverts to type, or smartphone or pen
To perfect a piece that pleases no men
A portrait of the poet as an old man