It started as a bet
The story of a life
Part engineered to fit the scenery

He'd loved a racist once
She kept a tidy house
It must have paid much better in the seventies

Back then you could be gay
But in a manly way
He held no truck with water pistols

Alternative lifestyles
Were for the middle class
At worst they could write poems about their misadventures

No real man could envy them that

Softly - suddenly


She'd started as an eight
Then sunk into a ten

He put it down to carbon dating
The daughter had his laugh
But not his smokers cough

It must have been the lack of tar in !@(%
She took herself to Wales
Excelled in telesales

Cold-calling deep into the evening
Her second husband came
And left before the Spring

It must have been the season for unhappy drunks
Her father had a similar trigger


Softly - suddenly

I gratefully accept this blackeye, no one knows as well as me

The value of consequences
Do to others as you would have done to you especially if in doing so
You find new takers