It seems strange to me

that the seasons are

the favourite

damn image

that poets

use for the inevitable

process of life

and its terminus:

the all too slow

and all too fast

movement of age

from birth

to dusty death.

 

How many times have I

heard the words

of resignation:

“You are in the autumn

of your life”,

said with such

well-meaning melancholy,

as if you then go to

the dreaded winter

of discontent,

and then (for the bright-eyed optimist)

back to spring again.

I can just hear the angels singing.

 

Really? Bullshit!

 

We all know

the end game,

let’s not live in some delusion;

we all know what follows

winter is certainly not spring.

 

Furthermore,

I will not be made

inevitable and desperate;

fated and in decline

like Macbeth waiting

at the castle gate for his beheading.

 

No! For me there

are no seasons.

Though my hair

shall grey

and my skin

shall sag;

though I be covered in wrinkles

and impotent and sad;

yet I will not give in to

the dreaded seasons.

I will defy them

and say with distain that

the gods are mad.

 

I shall,

while this lump of

meat

decides to give me life,

and while this panting breath

comes and goes,

live in the perpetual season

of spring.

 

Did you hear that?

Spring!

 

I am all the way with

Igor Stravinsky;

I want to stay with

the Rite of Spring

as my anthem;

indeed I can hear it now:

building fast,

after its slow and steady start,

to a fantastic crescendo,

with kettle drum pounding.

 

Yes, I want to live

my life of pounding Spring

and be filled with

the delights of flowers

and with all its new

vitality.

 

I want the fertility

of spring

still growing now madly

in this stupid heart,

as I give death and age

the one-finger salute.

 

Growing old?

Nah!

 

3/11/2015