Unending Mitigation
Remind me to unwind the clock
For time has never been my friend
Since I lay, bleeding, on the block
Pursuant to my end
Not caring how some dull decree
Might any moment set me free
Rewind the tape, and play again
Those gloomy strains of yesteryear
That issue from the steamy fen
Corroding all good cheer
And drowning many fearful men
Before they shed a tear
Record these thoughts lest time forget
The days we shared before the blight
That tinges time with raw regret
And saps our sacred will to fight
We must befriend posterity
And tame its wild temerity
Reverse the thread, and try once more
To ravel up the tattered sheet
Which sheltered us from Mistral's roar
And Boreas's slicing sleet
Then go and stand against the door
And gargle thrice with Hellebore.
Reject the pleas of those who smile
In circumstance inapposite
To us, whose total lack of guile
Is all we dare admit
As we all stumble, single file,
Between the shadows steeped with bile
Repeal the laws which punish fish
With drowning in the open air
And favour those whose only wish
Is scales in place of hair
And to become a tasty dish
Befitting such as Lillian Gish
Reveal me as the fool I am
Too tolerant, too meek, too mild
And probably, at heart, a sham
With vice unreconciled
Then solace me with one small dram
And give me sixpence for the tram
Rejoice! Yet in rejoicing, tell
No lies, for they will find you out
And when your sould you try to sell
you'll find, without the slightest doubt,
You're doomed to fry in deepest hell
and end your days a battered shell
Contributors: | P, TG, Roland. |
Poem finished: | 13th January 1999. |