I Was Once Young

I say “I’m depressed.”
He replies
“Well, undepress yourself;
Come to the court with the ball and the women.”
I look away listlessly,
Knowing the drugs are gone –
They have fled.
The bottles are sadly empty;
Empty cans riddled
The window sill.
The window pane
Screamed with dusty odium,
As the sun gleamed with antipathy,
The people
With cars sped by
Going nowhere;
Perhaps to heaven
Or perhaps to hell
And

I am trapped – forsaken –
To the four wall’s shadow
Of shade.

Somewhere morose men
Are getting laid . . .
Across the hall
Someone murmurs “Do you plan
To be here forever?”
I interject,
Sedated by loneliness,
“I hope to hell not!”

I return
To the bed,
The beds of desuetude
And I am
World-weary,
Deranged,
Estranged,

Chained to the earth
In an immemorial
Casket

A sullen dead
Corpse

The sun glints
Through the wistful window
Again,
And the birds
Whisper

Across the hall
They speak quietly,
“I think he has
lost it.”

Alas, I have.
I lost the gift,
The pleasure
Of being alive.

I sat for
Some time
In the
Caliginous air
In fugacious recall

Of when

I was young.
That was a lifetime
And a day ago.

The dream is dead;
I have embittered
The world –
Myself.

There is a price
To pay.
Haven’t a dollar to give
To anyone;
Haven’t the heart
To feel;
Haven’t
The courage
To go on.

The youth crabbed.

I was once young
And overly hopeful –
Encompassed and wrapped in
The sought after
Lucidity of
Pallid ardency

But

That was a lifetime
And a
Day ago

I denigrated the earth
And poisoned
The water
Which I live
By with acrimony

Together misery and I
Will live in Holy acrimony
‘Till the days
Grow thin –
‘Till the end
Dawdles
In sordid crassness

I was once young

They sough
In a sotto voce
But
I reluctantly
Hear them

“I think he’s dead…”
And, I think,
If only it were that easy.

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