DEFACTO LIFE

.                         1.     10..
                 Life for me    Ernest Hemingway
    Is merely pretence,  Would listen to my plight,
           It never seems   And know how I’ve suffered
To make much sense.From merely being alive.
                           2:.11..
         Joy of living Kipling and Keats
    Is known by others,  Yes and Longfellow too,
   But somehow in life  Would all know of the pain
     I always suffer.  That life put me through.
                            3.   12.
I’m told that love  Hardy and Dante
    Can bring great joy,    And even Robert Blair,
       Yet to my women  Would think of my life
       I’m but a toy.  With such utter despair.
                           4.  13.
           They use me as  Thomas Moore, yes
 Other men use them,   And Alexander Pope,
  Paying me back  Would know I’ve lived life
    For their other men.   Without purpose or hope.
                           5.  14.
    Life must surely be  George Santayana
     A wondrous thing,  And even Walter Scott,
For the very few that  Knew of the good things
    Love doesn’t sting.  My life never got.
                          6. 15.
  Oscar Wilde would Robert Louie Stevenson
     Surely cry for me, And the great Mark Twain,
  For we poets know Would know that my life
      A common need. Has been one long, sad refrain.
                         7.16.
     Shakespeare tooSalvador Quasimodo
Would surely moan,And Upton Sinclair,
For all the pleasureHave tasted the success
    I’ve never known.That for me wasn’t there.
                           8.  17.
George Bernard Shaw    Milton and Priestly
Would sob with shame,  Would see with remorse,
             Muttering again   All the troubles I’ve met
     And again my name.  On my life’s sorry course.
                               9.   18.
Alfred Tennyson tooOrwell and Huxley
   Would moan my strife,And perhaps Tolstoy too,
       For, for me sufferingWould mourn for my life
          Is a way of life.Now that it is through.

                                      THE END
                        © Copyright 2021, Philip Roberts
                             Melbourne, Victoria, Australia