No more pretence.

No more pretence.

Rumination

And time slippage

Are closer bedfellows

Than the comfort

Of nostalgia

For smoke in bars.

Cigarettes with heavy tar.

Eyes red and watery,

The beer warming

In the heat of

Saturday’s perspiration.

No regrets,

But apprehension

At the mention

Of contemporaries,

Who propped you up

When life was awry.

As whisky and rye

Were the friends

You all clung on to.

Nowadays,

You look for names

In the small print.

Obituaries nobody mourns.

Who mourns you?

And what matters

As darkness falls,

Contemplating

Nothing at all.

Its emptiness

Weighs as heavy

As the cross

You carry, for

Those lost years.

Before it mattered.

Every single moment

Now treasured,

As the end game

Draws nearer.

Should it be so?

As in the splintered second,

Before

Nothing happens,

And not to be,

Descends,

You will never know.

But what will change

If you do…?

And death ends,

In finding.

No pass over,

But another,

Passing through.