Bark bark
Bark on, sister, bark on
At the aged creature who dithers
Listless all day in a mental fog
Who’s queued all afternoon
In a gloomy crowded room
with a thousand years
Of spent humanity
Nodding off in front of
The stultifying crassness
Of daytime TV
Whiling the long hours away
In senile topor
Suddenly whirled into tea
Mashed up dried biscuits
In an oversized heavy cup
Of milk or tea
Or milky coffee
Dunking bread
From time immemorial
Into the turgid liquid
Dazed and confused
Harried and hustled
Hectored and admonished
Muffled shouting
Hardly reaching
Into damaged mind
And broken memory.
Bark on, sister, bark on
But consider this:
Nothing divides you from them
But three odd decades.
Your present is their past
Their present is your future.
