He’s on the floor.
Sprawled across three quarters of the room, but
he’s on the floor.
Fat as a Volkswagen Beetle and clad
in tuxedo and shirt and cravat,
he’s on the floor.
Tuxedo splashed with guacamole, burger sauce,
Veuve Cliquot and supermarket lager,
he farts like a mammoth.
He’s on the floor.
Balder than the northern ice-cap,
withering strands of what, deep in the forests of history,
were ginger and blond
straggle around his deaf ears
and his cricket-field eyes start to close as he daydreams
of youthful glories
and middle-aged sins
that sharpen such breadknives of guilt
and carve them so finally into his forehead
he cannot be bothered
to get up off the floor,
trousers all damp from the wrinkled old cock
that gave up on its duties
as he sat blowing bubbles and haloes of nicotine
in a jacuzzi of money.
He’s on the floor
and that is where he’ll finish.
Tomorrow they’ll silently come
and, childless, he will not be mourned.
