Kevin Cadwallender
The Lost Boys
We must learn to hold it together
accept our inability to be charming,
accept the girth of our wit is proportionate
to half the girth of our waistlines,
accept this riposte from the latest
barmaid as par,
accept that calling her a barmaid may
have queered the pitch
accept that our terminology is due for revision,
accept that the ‘kids on the street’
are our children or worse our children’s children.
Learn that growing old disgracefully
is a synonym for growing old ridiculously,
Learn to shrug at ageism
Learn to adopt the mannerisms of those
we mocked when we were the ‘enfant terrible’
and learn that we were as inane and banal
as the current ‘enfant terrible’.
We will grow to be lost if we do not,
and Peter Pan although the world’s role model
is as lost as us and twice as scared.
We will grow wise and wear slippers with zips,
We will grow water bottles in our beds
We will grow ear and nasal hair
We will grow up into our parents
and these young bastards with no respect
have got it coming to them and
serve them right.
We will grow the nerve to move to
the first person;
I will grow and accept and learn
although I have decided never to stoop
so low as to validate my love for the lost
boys that have come and gone.
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The