I am a fifty six years of age old man
And my mind is not at ease
The messengers are coming in thick and fast
And my destiny cannot be appeased
We are all born with a billion breaths
And my heart has been beating too fast
And as you know I have not been sitting there counting
So I have no idea how long it is all going to last
They say it is not the breaths you have
But what you achieve in between
Only sometimes like footprints in a sandstorm
The results can never be seen
The incline is getting steeper
The blood flows ever so freely now
As I sit here reminiscing
There is something I will avow
I will not sit there in a wheelchair
Looking out of my window into a brook
Living my days behind the net curtains
Like some seedy little crook
I will not be sitting in some wheelchair
Waiting for my next oxygen fix
Blood too tired to move anything
Swallowing my chemical mix
I cannot sit there in the wheelchair
Waiting for the next cough to slay
All my dreams of a better tomorrow
By stealing my next breath away
The infections are now on a rota
Ear first and then the chest
Itchy skin, headaches and blood filled phlegm
To keep me at my best
It is the little things
Like running upstairs to the loo
Its not major, its not significant
I mean, its not like walking to Timbuktu
Is it all part of an incline
In mans journey from and back to the void
Should I be a little bit more philosophic?
Instead of so blindingly annoyed
Copyright - Roy Merchant - Dec 2006
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem