Tigers Tearing

There is a dance made from the angles of years of our time,

unlike the measured walk the confidence of youth bestows;

it is the waltz of dying.

While we dance, our honesty is being measured against our crimes,

resignation watches as recognition grows,

leaving another child crying.

He writes of tigers tearing at him, help that never arrives,

as only some small fraction of his fate;

of blows still thudding home every now and then

as mere details, surprised to be still alive.

Still to endure torment and punishments; still running late;

still to know all that is coming, just never sure when.

This day is marked as cursed, like the rest since then,

already weak facade is slipping.

Fatigue, that poor parasite, rudely cuts in.

This instinct to give in is in its simple way convincing;

the scale of life is tipping;

doors to other passages remain shut to him.

Instructions urgently whispered, right out loud;

surgically altered listeners pretend not to hear.

When the sandcastle virtues are inevitably washed away;

the murkiest decisions can seem perfectly clear.

The hardening of resolve has lent to him small eloquence,

while the scale of his belittlement paradoxically has grown.

A terrible shock, a fact of life, unavoidable consequence;

if it was not actually an accident never will be known.

Like iron under acid, some long ghastly demise,

stumbling away but get drawn back yet again to the whips,

to impress, somehow, a god he really never did believe in?

This waltz with your own weeping is seen by mostly curious eyes

as what once had been gear driven now has a belt that slips;

by then you had given out way more than you received,

and failed yet again in spite of many furious tries.