An Old Man in Winter

Solitude of stone

Grimness of flame

Oh winter,

You and I

Are all that remain.

Come, draw near

Together, we will jeer

We will scorn them –

They who were too weak

To shoulder history;

They who were tamed by triviality,

And left us to our noble misery

They who took cowardly refuge

In the delusion of joy;

They who played footmen

To God’s pitiless ploy

They who compromised,

They who faltered

They who pined for perfection

And then spurned it at the altar.

And let us save our best contempt,

For the intellectually unkempt

Fools who fell prey to the birdsong of doves

And retreated into the safeguards of love.

Come, winter, we will laugh,

Spit on summer’s epitaph.

My friend, you have been my steadiest comrade

And in my lifelong charade,

You have played many a part

Wife, mistress and sweetheart;

So help me partake in this last sad pantomime

As we while away our dwindling time.

In defiance

Of pomp, circumstance and pleasance

You and I will remain

Locked in valiant refrain

And we will endure this eternal night,

With the friendship of the fire-light

Come, winter, we will feed its gleams

With the dying embers of our dreams.