Poem Late At Night

I am a walking, talking corpse.
I am a card-carrying member of the corps
of "senior citizens," "honored citizens,"
who without honor shuffle through the halls
like passengers whose train is always late.
I am a man who does not like his fate.

The cock no longer crows at dawn.
Obsession for the perfect curve is gone.
The slightest gesture that once fed
the rush of blood, the flood of lust,
now dangles like a phantom limb.
I am the singer with no hymn.

In memory, I was once alive, with heart
that thrived and met a kindred kind
to beat together, flesh on flesh.
When young, I never saw this mess
that's now my life of sad adagios,
these veins where blood no longer flows.

I am a walking, talking corpse.
I am a card-carrying member of the corps.
I am a man who does not like his fate.
There is nothing left to vindicate.
And so it goes, and so it goes,
boring laments, adagios.

--Charles Deemer