To be a man- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2013

To be a man- 

How tough it can be to be a man,

Knowing what man means

And what it does not,

Knowing what man can commit

And can omit

Knowing that man can love and man can hate

And eyes of love

Can turn into a hateful glare

To be a man

Is to stare

Into the muck, the rectitude

And the sloth

Of the human body

And how tough it is indeed

To exist

Knowing such responsibility

As you stand

On a cliff

Between innocence

And vice

Goodness and homicide

Love and cruel destruction

And how the sweetest day

Can turn into a sour loss

Your pedestal

Is your throne

And your madness

Is a soothing lullaby

Between the sheets

And the floating days

And who knows what

Is right and what is wrong

And what man can make

Or take with his hands

From a broken cradle

Unto a shallow grave

From memories

Of former friends

And every irony

And contradiction

Which our hearts

have worn

like the flowing vestments

of our own ideologies

and inner sought desires

Knowing what man is

And man means

Confusion follows

And men will follow

The muses and the patrons

Of a forbidden love

Who have no light

Of day to see our heart

And see our day

As test and time

Have hardened

Every bone

And every bone

Will break

As surely as we

Make the recollection

That love and loss

Are one and all

For the dream

And the foolish call

That one could love us

As we are

For who we are

As men

As madness incarnate

The trapeze artists

Over good and evil

The stragglers of the night

Fighting others,

Fighting ourselves

The prison is within us

As the chasm is wrenched open

And the agony is unleashed

To be a man is to be afraid

To laugh and cry

Amongst

The defeated congregations

Of the world

And these muses

And these patrons

Of our wasted love

Will not love us

As we are tormented

in our beds

Disturbed

By the rumbles of the world

The shadows of crimes,

Have-nots and have-gots

We clasp and pray

For night and day

To end and start

And start and end

To begin and begot

Our holy peace of mind

And how men search

For peace of mind

But the rumblings

Of the world

Are boisterous

And disturbing

And how a man

Returns to tears

Through each humiliation

From the years

To be a boy again

And expect no more

From the world

To retreat

From the noisy valleys

To the disconnected mountains

And in an hour

Curse the name of the species

The sky

The sea

Our namesake

And our identity

All in a drunken hour

From the muddy flower

Of a beautiful honesty

A wonderful joy

That agonises and finally

confesses

to be a man

is to be alone

the waste of love

the wasted efforts

the groans and moans

of youth and adulthood

all we say

in our instincts is

mercy mercy mercy me

mercy mercy mercy mercy please.

Copyright Robert Fullarton 2013- Taken from the book "Seasons in the waiting game"