John De Laine

Time burgles us.
It comes in the night,
and the next night
and the next.
We've no protection
from its rusted crowbar,
its old stocking face.
It ransacks youth,
It undermines us, and gags us.

We have finished.
We send it out. Finish again,
And send out again.
We bank the cheques, do the talk shows.

A work of art becomes marketable.
Poverty becomes success.
Rented rooms become a sky-home.
A bus becomes a Porsche.
Friends become acquaintances.
Congratulations become concealed knives.
Conversation becomes alcohol.
We forget the name of our first love.
Our performance becomes a topic in pubs.
Donations become tax deductible
and we forget the reason she smiled
that day.

John De Laine's first book of poems was published in 2000 in Friendly Street's New Poets series. He is presently a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide, where his thesis includes a novel, in verse, and an exegesis which explores the creative ideas of the poet Edward Thomas. He would like, one day, to visit Adlestrop, and listen to the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. <delainej@internode.on.net>