Shrivelling

After the last wife has died,

After the last woman has left in tears of frustration,

I shall sit, bent over, body and face

Not wrinkled as waterlogged fingers, but rather,

Dessicated and shrivelled as a raisin, all juice gone,

Mind crumpled up and thrown away in the trash,

Brain deflated and erratic as a dried-out walnut

To be packed away, hidden away in the cold, unthinking, in stasis,

In the hope that a Springtime of Science will have me take life again and sprout

Up, up, into something a thousand times greater than I was before, or am now.

Published: Ambit 211, UK, January 2013

WHEN DREAMS DRY UP

When dreams dry up—
When dead dolls dance in rags—
Children are grown—
The full tit, withered, sags—
In memory and wish
The wrinkled penis rises, not in flesh—
Gardens are left to weeds—
Taps drip unfixed—
Dishes reused unwashed—
The music skips—
When there’s no love, not tenderness or lust—
Then let the decades crumble, and the dust
Of marriage not be swept up, but blow away
away
away

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, September 2009