He hanged himself last week
and today I pass
a carousel of kids,
half of which
carry balloons
dragging in the wind,
and the statistics show
that a couple of
those smiling
wonderful little things
will top themselves too.
I compare and contrast,
endeavouring to measure
the immeasurable difference
between
those lives I’ve known
to have flung their own shadows
from the light
for fear of how tomorrow
may cast it,
and the lives of those who I never
had to grieve.
And those lives who
stuck it to circumstance,
to rage against the dying of the light,
to play music
and reminisce
a lifetime
of suns, and moons,
and circus balloons.
CONTENT 