alittlepoison

When I hit ninety and have no teeth
or fingers, this is the fairy-tale
I will tell to other people’s children.

Now listen. When I’d just started growing
into what I’ve turned into -
bones etc., hair etc., the rest just sort of
filled in around them -
there were two white towers which fell,
I think, out of the sky
and a gibbering ape who threw bombs
across the sea and a war, children,
a war. Against terror itself - imagine -
like a war against fear or madness
or bad dreams. And I fought
on the side of happiness.

But it was a time of monsters. A glistening smile
on a golden leash floated over the land
behind the mad ape
and cast shadows on the world.
The desert ogre skulking in his palaces of fear
mixed poisons in holes that no man ever found,
and fire rained down
on a city for days and there was death, children,
and death. In a secret cave
in a secret land, the bearded demon
leered at freedom
while in pavemented cities
his armies of fiends
exploded themselves for their thousand virgins,
and paradise.
Paradise, children, I know what it is.
I fought on the side of happiness.

This is the tale I will tell to your children
when I hit ninety and have no teeth
or fingers. And your children will ask me,
and I will answer:
Yes, my dears, of course we won, happiness
always wins. We defeated fear, we destroyed
bad dreams, and no-one was terrified
ever again…

But when the brats are out of earshot
I will lean back in my stained rocking chair -
bones etc., hair etc., opium pipe etc. -
and I will dream of my thousand virgins
and I will laugh,
the old bastard.