Growing old disgracefully
Growing old disgracefully
When my five senses lie
As useless as a broken lamp
In a land of deepest darkness
With air as thickly drawn
As a barrel full of treacle
My luck will have escaped me
Left me high and dry
Tossed out of the frying pan
Too inhospitably placed
To feel the heat
My recklessness is the petard
To cause my world to fall
Hard down upon a sword
Less noble than it may sound
In stories of the Samurai
When self-sacrifice was a commonality
What of mortality
When so many games are played
With little sense of danger
When all my five senses lie
What would be the truth of life
How would I come to know
Of the strangest things
To happen to the best of us
When the rest of us look on
Numbed by too numerous
An exposure to reality
To expect the best of life
When what has always come to pass
Is a gradual withdrawal
A sideways crawl
Crabwise in decline
Inch by torturous inch
Toward the obscure
Where common senses fail us
As the connection
Between the world
And us, is mired
In soulless propaganda