The Yin and Yang of (Just About) Every Thang

The waitress I dreamt

About 25 or so years

Ago just waited on me 

Only several minutes ago

 At the same old

Pizza spot. She doesn’t

Look half-bad for a

Gal her age, which is

To say that I couldn’t

Get it up for her now

If I tried. So the phrase

“Dodged a bullet” pops

Into mind as I watch

Her bring my coffee and

Sprite even as I type this.

But at the same time it

Might have been better

Than nice to have crawled

Under the covers with her

After so many long days

For many long years, not

To mention the unlived

Pleasures of having someone

To have shared my pains

And joys with. But

That’s not how it went.

Even as I’ve typed what

You’ve just read, I’ve heard

Enough of her chatter with

Another waitress to glean

That she has two grown

Kids with no live-in dad,

Which seems to be the

Norm in these final

Days of the Decline and

Fall of Western Civilization.

So maybe I’ve dodged

Half-a-cylinder of bullets,

And if society weren’t such

A collapsing mess, it might

Have been nice to have

Created beings who would

Grow up with my face

But without my regrets.

 

— FB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

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Dead Languages

I gloried in studying Latin

Before the jobs crucified

My concentrative powers.

All those Romans, wine

and togas and black

bangs flowing. All that

Poetry, Dramatic Tragedy,

And those epic orgies. People

who wonder why anyone would

Love a dead Language must

Be braindead not to realise

That all of the great languages

Have been dead for some time:

The language of Romance,

The language of Poetry,

The language of Free Thought,

Even the language of Logic

Itself, though they might

Seem to be alive sometimes,

Like the hot blood flowing

Through Catullus’ lines,

Or the proud look in the

Eyes of a statue of Venus

Or Augustus

Glowing alone and

Unloved in a museum

near you.

But those are only the

Echoes and shadows

Of life. The Romans

Are dead, just as is

The civilization they

Sculpted, sang,

Stabbed and screwed

Towards Olympus,

Dead as the one who 

Writes

These lines.

 

— FB