But a Sunday Compendium

Sorrow has found me or perhaps I let it breed

one breath too many and it effectively takes the lead

of senses too occupied with intrinsic vacillations

and my demon mistress very caught up in memory rituals.

But the sun's out and the children are wailing

waiting for the noise of dogs, foxes, distraught ambulances

to join them in the great mad chorus

of the fat ones that occupy ample pavements.

And London you amaze me, always fiendish in your temperament

Royal, one must admit, in how you hold us safe in your arms

disparate from morning, noon, evening, afternoon

always a mood that affects you grandiosely and a swift turn

of the clouds to assign your humor, ever changing and proud.

And that is why I am in awe, and fear, of your incredulous beam

the unchanged autumn sky, the persistent clemency

perhaps you have absented yourself and your temerity

to a place more worthy of excessive tempest, tide and wind?

And I know not how to qualify it - benevolence or assiduous trick

maybe this winter upon us will be conversely fierce

maybe you appropriate your seasons or grace them with

the infinite portrayal of their sole characteristic.

For Gods never chance life solely to please

the inferior race which they behold, curse, and tease;

they keep us entranced to bewitch us better

and laugh at our toils when we wish to escape combat.

So with this, I please in the feast of the sun drenched city

and comprehend with it happiness' great treachery:

enjoy it while it lasts, and this we will

and in time we'll shelter our cold skin

in reminiscence of autumn's alluring birth

that once we were glorious, blazing, and with the thirst

of mighty athletes in the marathon of existence

sprinting in the bounty of time's mirth

like the pretty girls softly sat on the underground,

owning well their sinless flesh and catapulted smiles.

My bones will still be pretty tomorrow and my hair a delight to behold

but will you be but a dream washed away by the fold

of my momentary delirium of famished sights

in which beauty is sought and truth is found?

My heart is a freeway on which no men dies

just gets carried away on reasonable perpendiculars

Most often deserted but hey that's the price

for charging them all for eternity's forfeit.

So yes tonight is a presence that may be felt -

the clemency of no adjusted purposes

just the lull breeze of wine and tranquility

but what point is there if it stands quiet?

For the thought shan't be atoned by its diminishing

nor destruction - dear tales and patterns of old!

It shall simply exist, caricature, unblemished by sleep

and the vain promise of next morning, new week.

Some day we'll awake and there's be nothing to keep

from time's wise justice and the decayed duties

that once kept us whole in the comfort of domesticity

a place not even our own but a safe travesty

of what we could own but may never inhabit

the paces we tick on the walls, the calculated metrics

of love, hope and death always symbiotic

the faith I wish I could extinguish but keep it to win

the endless battle between virtue and sin-

the face we kick into being with paint and a grin

will age soon enough and there'll be nothing to see

just the wither of a soul planted within

in the winter of my youth I aim to subsist

no more on sorrowful condolences

and not on future's deceptive promise

but in the instant always nascent and with it, gone

and the belief that when I capture it, it'll be mine for long.

I'm ready for the long night to distill revelry

I'm ready for fumbled mornings of carcinogenic bliss