All that fails*

All that fails
         all that has had its dub day
in court and is done
         rust and moth and termite
the floorboards that gave way
         underfoot / on an island
in Panama’s Portobelo Bay
         1976
the threadbare linen
         or the walls with peeling paint
spider cracks in the dry dusty plaster
         even the crumbling Tudor brickwork
grown soft and porous over the years

the years themselves
         the days minutes and hours
time that fails / that fails us
         or that we fail :
and the body flecked
         with the brown stains
of hemosiderin
         the fine tracery of veins visible
through the thin pale ankle flesh
         intimations of mortality
a stiffness in the joints
         a little less conversation
the hearing the eyes
         all past their best
and yet life surges
         is wave and particle
is body and mind / heart and soul
         shot through with duality
two times two and two to tango

and there is no distinction
         between space and time
between she and he and vice-versa
          mixed motives maybe
but without explanation
         what is the quantum expression
for a thrush perched on the pergola
         singing its heart out
as the day cracks on ?
         what supple equations lie within every 
algebraic fold of the budding rose
         which in itself will not last
although its atomised molecules
          are fated to live forever ?
words      words      words
         mouthfuls of air / gasps of poetry
the tide of breath measured
          against the merciless tide of time

John Lyons

* This is a substantial revision of a poem that appeared earlier this morning. These texts are created on the spur of the moment but with a view to insertion within a larger work. As such they should be considered as the raw material of a work in progress.