What for?

An endless avenue of years
stretch before me:
bus, coffee, newspaper,
do, done, plan to do again
lunch on diet, lunch on wine
work and wonder
bus, kids, wife
then a book to curl around
at day's end; at week's end
books and movies,
baseball games and dinner feasts,
a trip when there's an itch.
Dear me, what for?

It will happen over and again:
Christmas tree and Lenten ashes
fireworks and All Hallows' masks,
sunshine or rain; house, office, and bus
fend off my lust,
my fear of nakedness, of pain ...
to be poor, lonely, old,
to grow weak and hear my body ceasing
to obey
all that can happen, all I dread,
some of it will come before I am dead.
Then I will ask my inner self: whatever for?

Once I thought
I was made so love could shine in winter
so God could be man again
to bless the creatures;
but that feature played to mixed reviews
that coin's been wasted on the beggarwoman
the preacherman's "Jeezus" is a broken record
and the creatures do not tell me what they want
nor can I guess, were I able to fulfill their dreams ...


Before all pleasure turns to rust
my desire pilfered from some others
as theirs is drawn from me till ennui,
I may yet ask the beggarwoman
what have I to give a life
simply to die each day,
to lie undead ...
or what else, and what for?