Allemande Left
The mensches and the stresslords
take a curtsy and a bow
as they thrust and parry one-on-one
to seize the here-and-now,
as they wrestle in prolonged embrace
throughout their tortured dance,
ever hoping for advantage
that might come one’s way by chance.
It’s a poor and pained excuse for life
when cells defy their host.
And the only thing more lurid
is to hear the hostess boast
that, no matter how besotted
by the drugs that eat his guts,
her courageous hero wins the day
against some stupid putz
of a microbe which defies him yet
and dares to call him slain
just because it’s taken half his flesh
and occupies his brain
which is more than any human does
who plays such silly games
(notwithstanding all the mortal fancies
going down in flames).
Are we, too, besotted - one and all -
chimeral to the end,
just because we’re bent on never knowing
what it is to bend?
And the only difference, after all,
when all is still at last, is:
the stresslord has the finer hearse;
the mensch, the kinder past.