Borrowed Time Poem by John Sensele

Puny pride parades pomposity
Pounding its cherished chest in a quest
To increase celerity and luminosity
Thereby eating its substance and balance into a pesky pest.

Puny pride provokes the power
It possesses not
Screaming in a shower, offering a frail flower
No woman wants when the ambiance blows hot.

Puny pride cultures and nurtures nonsense
Clawing its way into arrogance
Denuded of the essence of common sense
The absence of which denies pride the fortifying fragrance

Puny pride needs to survive
In spaces puny pride rents
If proponents of proven performance derive
Value from the prize paucity puny pride vents.

Puny pride ought to watch its back
Lest it should be cast out
To rot in ignominy when its hack
Undressing the foot in the boastful boot teeming with a double doubt

Verbal diarrhea engenders
When puny pride falls from grace
Enlisting in the club of dribbled defenders
Who in the end can't survive a redoubtable rat race.