Courage!
you the old who go hobbling on who mumble
complaints about the bad state of your health
you old women who lament the lack of males
so few men to be seen now in the markets
you the aged sad shadows human horrors of the flesh
owls dead ugly and all moulting you old men
I prefer you a hundred times more than all these braggarts
who bore us stiff with their decorous parades
those fat cats with their patter songs of pelf and penis
those small-screen crooks those TV channel high-ups
they no longer put it over you the old
you’ve seen worse things than that and if they’ve
left you on the shelf your abject being all the same is one
great mute gob of spit shot right between the eyes
bravo the old you’re well within your rights when you
persist like crabs in occupying
the entire length and breadth of pavements bravo the old
shamelessly showing up in café restaurants
with your ugly phizzogs yes you the old ones
hang on there everywhere show them up those pension-packers
stupidly clinging to the rungs of their careers
go everywhere and show them what you are
that they may behold the outcome of their miserable triumphs
and then because of having turned blind eyes on your distress
they’ll soon have nothing better to do than come and join you
at your beer-swilling old folks evenings where you dance
you admirable old living rags and tatters
caricatures coldly demonstrating the end of human nature
courage! keep on disfiguring with your masks
the wretched landscape where our “happy few” go through their
antics
Translated by James Kirkup
Page(s) 40-41
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