SUCKER PUNCHING THE COSMOS

 

I didn’t heed Frost’s advice

about staying Gold

instead I just got old

without a trace of the glory

that once I supposed was mine.

 

The sleek Rimbaudien youth

waylaid by cliché

and beaten down by circumstance

and negative surroundings.

 

It happened just like that

that the hair would come out

and one day suddenly

I would be bald and not caring.

 

Banjos and clarinets sing

great tales of my defeat

and failure enters the canon

in a sudden thrust

and immortality is mine.

 

But I don’t want it!

 

I prefer to live life

in a state of blissful myth;

the legend in my own mind

that I have never become.

 

There’s not much sorrow

or bitter malcontence

It’s just a gnawing feeling

of letting it all slip away.

 

My paunch is my undoing

and I can’t deny the fire

that I wish to main

and the brightly burning intensity.

 

I’ve thrown a sucker punch

at the cosmos

and gotten away with it.

 

It’s a proud moment

which certainly 

I’ll cling to forever.

 

Not everyone gets that lucky

and not everyone catches

a few good breaks

so take it and run

and be grateful

if only for a moment.

 

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