[racehorse]

not a poem "per se".
it was at first but i thought it suited prose more than verse.......
tell me what you think...



The Lunatic

I have sat one too many evenings in this cafe, watching angelic old men sit and eat their last meal.
One of their eyes seem always to be casually fixed on the dreary city outside. A glass enclosure on the other side of the window, an tasteless exhibition of swarms of sneering women with their pinched, sour faces, glaring down from skyscraper windows, playing cat and mouse games with their tongues. Streets and streets of sexless buisness people in suits bouncing and billowing along with the wind.

And the other eye, always on the dessert.

To me, they always seem to have a sort of "Christ-like" understanding (although I am not at all religious), an almost sympathetic rapport with humankind, with a grey beard, a tattered jacket, skin, peacefully creased, and soggy, colourless eyes.

Their eyes seem to be so soft and fragile that if they were left out under the sun for too long, they would easily become soft and melt, just like chocolate, and smoothly run down the cheeks like a snotty nose,
drip down the trouser-leg, and gather at the feet in a slimey glob of jelly.

But to be honest, I never think that they truly understand the grim reality of their situation.
They never seem to realise that the meagre slice of drizzly lemon pie
that they are poking at with indifference, is actually the last
slice, of lemon pie that they will ever have the pleasure of devouring. I'm pretty sure that they don't realise. I think that perhaps I am the only one who realises.

You know, sometimes I catch them staring at me, probably with harmless inquisition, as if they are trying to figure something out, or that they know something that I don't. It's all very disturbing, poor fellows.They must be at their wits end, I think to myself. How awful, though, it must be for these men to have death creep up behind them, like a cruel, mischievous child, without any sort of warning and announcement. Especially since I have, over time, grown to possess a soft admiration, a tenderness, if you will, towards these men. Life is terribly cruel sometimes. I sigh to myself.
But at least, (I think reassuringly) at least when my turn comes I willl know of it's happening a good while beforehand, I think to myself comfortably.

Having succesfully cast off the unpleasant thoughts, I settle myself in my chair.

And with a sudden shudder and a fearful glance towards the fated faces floating at the tables all around, I tuck in, to my slice,
and absent-mindedly gaze out of the window.