Paperchase Poem by Christopher Shepheard

I am forty-one. Dear God, how middle age,
Creeps up on one like a neighbour begging aid,
That cannot be refused, though much resented,
And will not be repaid.

Thus goes the world, but what would change without it?
That sun and moon with days play paper-chase —
Dropping the calendar pages, gathering them —
Is incidental to my fall of face.

I am the author of my own undoing:
The clock that never fleets will never fail;
Blame not the hours that blink, but the reminder,
Wearing out the tongue that tells the tale.

(1991)