NIGHTMARE OF SENILITY

Then must I punish you with trustfulness

Since you can trust yourself no more and dread

Fresh promptings to deceive me? Or instead

Must I reward you by deceiving you,

By heaping coals of fire on my own head?

Are truth and friendship dead?

And why must I, turning in nightmare on you,

Bawl out my lies as though to make them true?

O if this Now were once, when pitifully

You dressed my wounds, kissed and made much of me,

Though warned how things must be!

* * * * * *

Very well, then: my head across the block,

A smile on your pursed lips, and the axe poised

For a merciful descent. Ministering to you

Even in my torment, praising your firm wrists,

Your resolute stance.... How else can I protect you

From the curse my death must carry, except only

By begging you not to prolong my pain

Beyond these trivial years?

I am young again.

I watch you shrinking to a wrinkled hag.

Your kisses grow repulsive, your feet shuffle

And drag. Now I forget your name and forget mine

No matter, they were always equally ‘darling’.

Nor were my poems lies; you made them so

To mystify our friends and our friends’ friends.

We were the loveliest pair: all-powerful too,

Until you came to loathe me for the hush

That our archaic legend forced on you.

[From Poems 1970-1972 (1972)]