Artifice, O artifice,
Though you look like paint and rouge
I find you very much amiss
I know you by your subterfuge.

Once upon a dreary child
At loose ends in Toronto town,
A six-pack did he put away
His porridge to wash down.
A breathalyser he received
And forty whacks from head to toe.
Although his breath was baby sweet
His didies were not so.

Clever clever, sweet as hell
Bubbly, bubbly, just like hell
I would give a lot to be
Swimmin’ in that pot of Pea
Scrapin’ all them goodies up
By the bowl or by the cup.
But is they peas or is they leeks?
That’s the thing I dearly seek
And do it have that special thing
To make ya dance
And make ya sing?
One thing that I dearly know
’twas put together don’tcha know
By someone who is dear to me,
Who knows his nose
And loves his pea!

Maturing stupidly means seeing oneself as a single shingle on the roof of some nobody’s ode to nothing.

Would it be too much to ask our respective Gods if we could go back, revisit our bads, and drop in a more attractive version alongside, clearing the way for an unfettered, unregretful existence? What would that leave you besides ending like your best china—never used? Is that so bad?

How badly do you need a doctor who tells you you’re in good shape for a man of your vintage—a door slam prevents your sorry comeback to him—before stumbling into the city’s mosaic, where, shufflin’ home, you get caught in a “youth storm” smelling as if they weren’t born before your appointment with Doctor Livingstone he presumes.

Never had it. I was too busy listening to sounds in the ear. . . . Oh—that was it? The buzzes, the crackles, the squishing, the flooding? Starts like a soft-voiced female accompanying your own voice to start with—then when you stall for a breath, at the first sign of insecurity it takes over like a pirate, overpowering yours, tying up the cook and keel-hauling your voice, which in comparison has begun to sound like Anne of Green Gables who’s arrived late at a school picnic after all the food’s gone, though less demanding and more wicked, as if you’ve rented your sound-box out to sixteen angry comics in a locked green room at showtime.

Meanwhile—intimidated as a nude nun—you say “sorry” far too much, and sign your head over to this new voice that doesn’t hear you anymore, changes the rules of your house, starts throwing out your double-breasted jackets and favourite coloured scarves, that kind of thing, and you wait and watch till you don’t own anything anymore, and you’re fed up with cowering behind the grandmother clock so you excuse yourself and call a perfectly legal ear man, sharp as the rest of your family.

You could trust her, but her eyes were an off-ramp to the rest of her face, catching any and all of the action she considered beneath her.

Honestly, I’d be as happy as hell to be a loving item with you, but we should start by sharing a few truths about ourselves. For example, I have never—not once, ever—washed under my arms. Hear what I’m saying?  Never—not ever—have I cleaned my ‘unten dein armin’.  Have not—in my memory—been to the pits! But, if you can get past that when I raise the bridge for the first time since saluting in uniform to wave at my friends—who, by the way, are forever picking their noses, and wiping it on others—I can see us getting on like a house afire.

The LOTTO winner—now attired by Saville Row, whose salesman for the month of May had gripped his hand like long-lost kin—treats himself to steak tartare, his former taste buds left with friends he could not remember having, and separated from them by a hurried dash of man’s cream.

In contrast, at a stuccoed home for Vets another scuffer counts his points from slippery Jacks and tens, and, smiling, guides the ample pyramid of matchsticks off the table’s edge and twirls his wheeler past his cheering, aging fan-base to his room.