After all the swallowing and fits

When I’m held hostage on a tram full of tuneless durges

With the dizzying twirl of girls pretending to be lap dancers

And red faces forcing out their final attempts at humour

Spurred on by my goading way of trying to keep out of it

And dragging me up for a conga line

I think- count yourself lucky I am not 20 anymore

Or I would have stubbed out my cigar on some tongue

Before calling you all a bunch of apes

Ah, but I was so much older then

 

And when your suppers scrapped from plates to bins

And when the night’s embarrassments sink silt like to the bed

And the thread of golden moments weave in to stay

The day pesters you awake again

Flakey and in pain

Girls sick with sea legs from rocking chair heels

And stomachs ache in young men who have carried more in weight and feeling

Than they normally do in the week

 

This thought rings Parker’s lament in me

And though you don’t seem as hard or as ridiculous

As I have been

We all know the feeling

That some bit of us has died

And some bit of us has grown