William Oxley
The Grinning
‘It is proposed to lower the age for homosexual consent
and raise the age for smoking’ - so what’s meant?
I walk through the local supermarket and see
the pre-packed choice for the designer-free,
my mind on Lear’s author’s long ethical agony
who saw the world’s dark side and it was - irony.
Later this evening, terraced in effervescent shadows
watching the sunset’s orange peel as it slips and goes,
I think of universal harmony as music made brittle
because man cannot cope with being so little,
and for all his talk of humour never sees the joke
against himself, but cries until he almost chokes,
‘I am a man, more sinned against than sinning!’
Nor ever hears the question, ‘Are you really?’
or sees the grinning.
Page(s) 39
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