Glaucoma

 

Glaucoma

 

Eyesight’s going ...

 

Each year the lenses thicken

To unscramble the flurry of words

Either read or written;

 

A discursive Morse Code:

Pictograms, hieroglyphics,

Tattoos, graffiti, facebook, woad.

 

Though looking back seems clear enough,

If you don’t stare too hard

At all the peripheral stuff.

 

But one always glossed over the small print,

What the packet really contained:

Those illegible, inedible ingredients.

 

Still, it’s in the failure to deliver

That life takes our measure,

That and in the unsuspected depth of the mirror.

 

Yet, finally, the future’s focus is tight

On the oncoming darkness –

The tunnel at the end of the light. 

Legacy

Legacy: Take 1

 

In the scheme of things,

I go first:

fall off, pass away,

drag myself out,

leaving you with the job

of grief, resolution, euphemism,

platitudes and clichés;

the coming to terms with ...

this thing we call love:

the failure that is wrapped

in good intentions,

ribboned with guilt

(you’ll have turned away first -

a sleight of hand, a slight -

into another life,

leaving me

blind-sided).

 

You’ll understand one day,

when in what you believe

is your own life

you slip from its fingers

and you’re caught out,

not waiting

for the impact,

not remembering

how it comes in

                            sideways,

then remembering,

                                as it does;

reminding you of me,

of us.

 

Touché, you’ll say.

 

And  smile ...

And ... cut!