Nine Lives (Poetry)

Once more I’ll reinvent myself — assume
a character defiant to the end
but wishing good was stronger, bolder, filled
with certainties that stifled every doubt.

For I’m no phoenix, wonderfully wrought
in flames and passion, rising from the black,
but the darkness had detained me long enough
and someone whispers, coaxes me back out.

New blood and courage, destiny resigned
to bluff and nonsense — same old mortal coil
like a narrow road a-winding, fairground-steep —
a vaguely disappointing bumpy ride

and not so thrilling as the promise blurb —
exhilarating isn’t quite the word
I’d use describing random jolts and spills —
life’s tiresome ups and downs we brood about.

But, cat or king, the fittest will survive
and even death is not all that it seems —
an interval, a rest before the play
begins again, another set of lines

scripted fresh — the ink is barely dry,
the plot predictable, its drama tame
as pantomime — Dame Nature’s corny joke —
break a leg and smile, it’s curtain up.