I find myself more and more among
those marginal characters who seem intent
on getting nothing done, decommissioned hussars,
jilted maids-in-waiting or fauns, even,
all wooly from the waist down realizing
their eon’s over, no one believes in them
anymore and if you asked, Heck, they’d say,
We never much believed in ourselves.
It all happened so long ago, the storming
of the prison, the invention of happy gas,
the marriage of the sun and the moon. Suddenly
a lady might need her petticoat removed,
the band would play until the fuzz arrived
and the fairies were almost safe in piano bars.
But the certainties of any age will rot
as they are recycled and must be shoved aside
to allow the next loud, thunking youth
its anthems and wars, its splatter.
Such has been muttered since the end
of time and will be muttered more while
the world stays stitched with golden rays
and each finds her own way out.