On Holiday

A chance to recollect the life
that for years I hated but couldn't slough off;
foolish love affairs, the preposterous change
from being young to becoming old, ideas dragged round
like bits of the true cross, and instants that shoved joy
like a zoo-keeper meat at a hyena, prolonging
vivid dreams, dragging frustration —
and I compare myself to this! That's the pity;

not all I've hated, not any empty regret,
but the way it lingers like worms in the bowel
so no matter how everything's changed, as I tell myself,
in idle moments, on holiday, I'm shown
this sideshow of my past — grotesque puppets
beating each other like Punch and Judy, so joyously cruel
I want to ignore the point:
that the meaning resides in endless repetition,
every useless recollection of failure and cause
ensuring I remain the person I always was

no matter how changed; black but in harlequin's clothes.