Stiff shouldered
older
bulldozer
of a man,
holds the embers
of distant joys
that he still remembers.

Hidden jewels
that once sparkled
are now blemished,
could be polished
but the remembrance
wouldn’t equal
past reality.

Those glory days
of lazy waste
when he would play
and devastate
the landscape
with dirt tracks
and rough houses.

These moments
are everything
he wants
in a daydream,
but the harsh rays
of modern days
forces him
to remain awake.

He is wiser now,
but longs for
the innocence
of youth
unexplored,
when he was
ignorant
of the imminent
end of all of it.

So, as time takes
his fellow well-aged
middlemen
on a fool’s errand
straight to the edge
of eternity’s
black abyss,
he looks back at this
and slips into the void.