Bad Grace & Belligerance

Candlelight golden on whitewashed walls
Pale human form; rises and falls
Shrunken and shrivelled, once tall
Air bubbling, and struggling, through scrawny, skeletal chest
Dreamy stillness, stale, rotten breath
Retching, ugly, faint apology for death.

Sweat soaked halo of grey
Pale blue lips struggling to say
In the end… we all pay
Saints n sinners, makes no odds
Don’t, can’t believe in God.
Just a bloody belligerent sod.

Creased brow, eyes peering through fading light
Cancer ridden body, giving up the fight
Soul looking to flee, take that final flight
Dark stain spreading across pristine white sheets
Shit, shouldn’t haven’t eaten all that fuckin’ meat
Too late now somebody else to greet.

Wispy smoke, candle going, slowly absent
Cough and desperate last angry shout
Still the bullying, viscous lout
Final goodbye, angry and gruff
‘Stick your morphine’ rasping, gasping; rough;
‘Fuck you, fuck off’ quiet, insipid, no longer tough.

Bad grace and belligerence; the only way to go
Tell them all, let the whole world know
All fake, everything faux
Diamonds and pearls, all things that can be replaced
Blood drenched cough; so long as you’ve got your health
Strangled sob, doesn’t want to leave this place.

The eyes have gone, blank, featureless, staring into the distance
Regretting, perhaps, the hedonistic, secular existence,
Too late to contemplate, too late for any meaningful penance
They’ll have to take him as he is, this shadow, this broken form
Riddled and sour, so far from the norm
Quiet; the window revealing a silent, still, cold; lonely dawn.

The three masters of fate are here, at last, looking on, their job nearly done.
Clotho, his thread of life so willingly spun,
Head down, for him, this part is never any fun.
Lachesis turns away, having parted with all he is prepared to bestow
The penultimate event, in lifes’ ultimate, futile show;
And enter, the glittering eyes, the knowing smile;
the merciless knife of poisonous Atropo.

Copyright © DC 2009