EULOGY TO AN ENIGMA

EULOGY TO AN ENIGMA

If my wishes were not fanciful farts
& my days had not become sour tarts.
If youth wasn’t lost on martinis with Ginger
& Fate had toiled harder without linger-
ing in less clear & mal-directed ways
I might not wallow in this buttery haze
known also as old age, with my pal Solitude,
living out my latest duck-duck-goose days.

If I live to be one hundred & ten,
if love affairs turn blissful at the bend
& false promises never portend
then carve on the upright face
of my tombstone, this note of grace,
He saw things as others couldn’t, and
grant me in my everlasting peace
a moment for my elegiac soul to atone  
for paths, I gladly took against the norm.