Me Too

Life’s too short
But you realize it
When most of it’s
Down the drain.

Life’s too short
And I’m too old
For games any more.

If I still can find the energy
I’ll squander it the way I want.
Not pushing boulders
Up someone else’s hill.

Not pissing against the wind,
Whatever wind, those others tell me,
I should piss against.

I, who obeyed all the injunctions,
Find my old grey head, like Burns,
Has lain in clay too long.

Oh, yes, I’m too old for this:
Overtaking slow fools
To only gain a meagre inch
As the miles slip and slide away;
Chinning it with mean minds
Whose noses mark the limits of their vision;
Working up lathers of private rage,
Useless rage against useless things.

Life’s too short;
It’s time something was done.

And my life is on the rocks, I’m sure,
Because I always swam against the tide
And paid too little heed to shoals and shallows.

But now I’m washed up, beached,
Clinging on to barnacles and weed
I’ll join the rocks and stand.
At last, upon their permanence,
I’ll make my resistance plain.

© BH 2015

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Just a thought. While there's always time, the more of it you spend, the more you realise the only thing is to be true to is yourself.  All the push and shove, going-places, mine's-bigger-than-yours, power-plays are just a distraction. The road to Hell is paved with the cracked wicker of hand-baskets as well as faded good intentions. More often, there's a spec or two of ire, bile and naked self-delusion in there.

Comes a time when all we can do is laugh at self-importance and the ways we're all duped by the mean minds behind the scenes. So, I say, crawl back up, stick up however many fingers remain. Grow up, humans! We're too old for this!

This was sparked by Dominique Brown's piece in the New York Times I'm Too Old For This. Thanks to Alison Dunlop for the nod to it.

By the way, that's me on the rocks there. Sandwood Bay as it happens. The chair is a genuine Harman Chair. Colourful and comfortable.

Footnote, October 2018: 

This poem predates the 'Me Too Movement (#MeToo)' by a couple of years. That went viral in 2017, though the term was in use about sexual harassment before that. This poem isn't about #MeToo though it could be taken to carry references to it. It's more of a rant against the wider context of brick walls we bang our heads upon. And, yes, there's the thought about standing up and being counted, even if only on a pile of rubble.