Old man in a Public Housing flat
A gift from a government department
He never voted for
He can’t figure out the television
Some bastard hid the remote
Old man does the dishes
Everything else is clean
Old man falls over in the shower
Blood, oozing from the split in his lip
Trickles down the drain
Old man rises
Slippery bones and brittle muscle
Groaning against the relentless tide
And the downpour of indoor rain
Now standing, he washes away the stain
In a bathroom mirror
That doesn’t see him the way it used to
The mirror needs fixing
Everything is broken
But the bastards
Those sons of bitches
They never fix a god-damn thing
He puts on a royal robe
The vestments of an invisible emperor
Claws his way to an open window
And just stares into the open street
Eyes blank and formless
Lips cracked like broken pills
Once mashed by bored nurses
And fed to him in angry porridge
Now a monthly needle
Replaces everything but solitude
No more spoon-fed gruel
No more electroshocks
He has forgotten what amnesia means
Now the windowsill
Offers him a glimpse of the outside
And a stage for his impotent rage
But there is nothing worth screaming
There are no dreams any more
He pulls the curtains closed
Like wrinkled folds of skin
The outside world disappears completely
Just briefly
Yet it may as well be gone forever
He sits in an armchair
Stares at an empty screen
Flat
Like they say the world used to be
Waiting for his favourite show
As if the dead television would know
Nothing worth watching
Nothing worth being
Nobody visiting
No family or friends
Just burnt toast and eggs
Like a split mind
Scrambled
By the depredations of time
