The Gigolo's Lament

Monday is the cruellest month,

The day when Judas flowered,

And I have neither youth nor strength

To keep the budding storms at bay;

They strike to quicken my decay,

Washing past paint and broken panes

To rot the bricks of my peeling face,

The façade of a blunted age.

Time has blistered me;

A shattered lamppost from a dulled past –

Disclaimed by those on whom I shone

My firm but gently passionate gaze –

Known now just in passing by their pets.

The women come with the night

And I wrap them in fondling shades.

The fertile seasons are now ghosts,

Soft bones wreathed in perfume and lace.

The limed streets of Paris, Berlin, Stuttgart,

The deceptions and the cunning corridors

The taut strung mannekinds subtly employed

To gain a creaking fuck, a handsome suck,

They now rise as my hunger grows

To mock my once proud shrunken hoe,

Its craving for breasts rich and slack,

For wayward bellies kept in trim

By cyclic fasts, the scalpel’s cut.

The women pass without a glance

A cold frost falling from their heels.

I will sit at the window

With the red light on

Cementing my face

And when the night freezes on my limbs

Go out into the street, walk straight,

Immaculate in my crotchless pants,

A bunch of keys hung on the left,

My tailored shirt of faded silk,

My brushed suede shoes

And sell my arse

Face crushed against a backyard wall,

keys tolling, “Oh, It’s time, it’s time.”