At the end of his seventieth year
Seventy?
Shome mishtake here, shurely?
Seventeen, more like!
Immature, irrational, over-emotional,
rightly dubbed the oldest teenager in town
– and that was thirty years ago!
Soixante-neuf was somehow
sort of appropriate,
being rude and sexy both,
a big kid still peering down ladies' blouses . . .
but one year on,
three-score years and ten's biblical limit
seems nowhere close to bringing his adventures to a close;
he still shows small sign of growing up.
This circus advance man still barks his wares like a fairground huckster,
this son of a socialist tramp,
a busker and streetcorner preacher
wakes every day expecting to meet with God,
to find the heavenly gates of red revolution about to swing open;
creature of contradictions,
Marxist Christian,
alcoholic who's been dry though anything but clean and sober for 21 years,
falling in love daily,
hating nothing but hate itself,
forgetting nothing, forgiving . . . everything,
his own worst enemy,
drunk on life, sober as a juggler,
undiplomatic, naive, innocent, indigent, extravagant, fighting off his second bankruptcy,
well into his latest longest-lasting, eternity-promising love,
still loving every lover since his earliest fumblings,
jazz-singer, ballad-maker, ritual weaver, dreamer,
equivocator,
twice married, five passionate loves, two suicide attempts,
always a critic though no faultfinder,
harshest always on those closest to him,
infuriating – most especially to himself.
Septuagenarian?
Second childhood, more like.
January 15, 2001
