For Lou Reed
It
is the season of rain
I
remember
They spoke of the rain
They never said
The
sun would always shine
If
they had
We
would not have believed
They never said
That we would never die
They spoke of death
With every line
And
yet they lived
Like desperate Pirandellos
Painted, artificial
But
so god damn real
And
so we willed
They’d stay forever young
Is
anybody still so real?
Now
the days are getting
Shorter
Are
we
Selling ourselves
Shorter
Now?
As
we embrace irrelevance
The
door
Is
always
There
The Past is
Hungry
The
past is hungry
Fat
as fuck yet faster than
A
fleeting thought it swallows everything
Before it and I’m running
Keeping just
A
step ahead
Not
even a step but just
A
breath, a whisper
The
last fading cadence of
A
laugh drawn by a joke
Already gone
The
future that once infinite resource now seems
Significantly smaller with each second swallowed
up
By
history
The
second being the currency paid ever back
Like third world debt the famine stricken
future
Must constantly tithe towards
The
rapacious ever-growing empire of
The
past, annexing yet another territory
To
its name
The
monstrous supermarket chain of yesterday
Is
opening another store
With everything you ever wanted neatly ranged upon its
shelves
Processed, packaged, easily
Consumed, unreal
Tomorrow is that tiny corner shop
You
stared into its great wide window wide-eyed as a child
Subject now to early closing, soon it will be
gone
And
everything will belong to
The
past, it’s eaten everything and still wants more
Howling insatiable for you and I, the heroin hits
of
Eternity, and yet when the end comes
The
past as well will be devoured
As
memory itself just disappears
And
all you’re left with is the shrinking
Present moment
Present
Moment
Gone
Bio: Ben Graham
lives in Brighton, England where he regularly reads his work on the thriving
local poetry scene. He is also a music journalist (The Quietus, Stool,Pigeon,
The Fly, Shindig! etc.) and is currently completing a history of Texan
psychedelia for Zero Books.
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