Where's It Gone? Poem by Bernard Quest

Where is my oorah? (it's also known as
Esprit du Corps - funny, that it takes war
To bring us together) all this fighting
Begs the question, just how did this happen?
I put it in writing and the words burn
Like chunks of vomit lodged in my sinus
I'm trying to be rational, weighing
The plus and the minus of fifteen years
Together, envisage fifteen apart,
Glassy grit fouls my workings, blustered from
The steppes of my heart. Selfish wanderer.
So, live together, die alone (although,
Long intervening period without
A home) . This realisation touched me
Even then: the weakness of skin and bone
And phlegm, the vanity, the presumption
That you could feed me with a smile, and this
Consumption could sustain emotional
Dysentry.


Where is my moxy? My street smarts? My guile?
Attaboy you're doing fine, just great, yet,
All the while I've heamorrhaged my last ounce
Of feeling by trying to play it cool:
Lavender Hill and the boys from Ealing;
Being charming, talking clever, I felt
That it, and us, could go on forever.
Well, once more with feeling, and this time please
Convince me. People laughed back then, but now
Look baffled asking 'What's it all about? '
Sloughed onto the cutting room floor waiting,
The itchy scales of this monster called us,
For a cinder to curl this dark hating
Celluloid into brittle ash, complete
With sweet and bitter smells of poison gas.
It's gone now: the life plan, the vision, calm.
And history is a cruel art, so why
Make me twist your arm, we both knew, it would
Never fly.


Where is my my derring-do? My slick-haired imp?
It once oozed from every pore like cheese left
Out to sweat. I played my part well, a timp-
anist in our duet (true!) , wave at me
And right on cue, my one bright noise, perfect.
I felt cheated when my heart was stolen
To find I was only punctuating
With commas, maybe a semi-colon,
The beating of your own. There are reasons
No-doubt, and we both did our best, allow
Me to rest here like a capital G
With my head between my knees, g..g..g...
Not so sassy now, only wallowing
It does neither of us any good, but,
Take from it some sweetness and swallowing
Let yourself be fed, since you are blameless,
And I confess having nothing more to
Give you, am like yesterday's news, read and
Forgotten.