Ken's Poetry

Boy Next-Door

Call me camel-back, monkey-face,
it’s OK, I can understand.
You have not yet felt the ache
that lurks in my old legs,
the pain accompanying a finger’s flick.
From prone, you can sit up quick,
whilst I must roll and push and strain,
and you can rush around the day unpuffed
whilst each thick breath I take
demands effort to be sucked.

I can recall the power of youth and health,
the strange antithesis of confidence and insecurity,
the craving for love, the bursting lust
that fizzes in the boiler of your veins.
I can remember tempting fate and death
clinging by my fingers to a cliff,
alone at night unafraid yet terrified
as silent darkness sighed a silent breath,
and the excitement of a loud rock beat
the smell of sweat and woman heat.

But now heart-beaten time
drums irritatingly through walls.
I take my pills and try to sleep
whilst your body writhes in dance,
raw energy flashing in your feet.

Your time will come.
I wish you aching bones!