Dinner Is Always Gone Too Soon

Dinner is always gone too soon
The plate too quickly cleared.
Leaving worn ceramic patterns and a fat man’s lonely fears.
In the darkened hours that lie ahead
Before the next meal comes
Will the hunger gnaw and worry or the weakened heart succumb.
Will the urge to simply eat again
Drive slippered feet to creep
Out of bed down to the kitchen whilst the thin men lie asleep.
Will he sit all bathed in fridge-light
While his hands scoop deep inside
And the ice cream dribble off his chin whilst tears begin to slide.
Will the silence all around him
And the darkness in his soul
Drive him deeper into madness as he guzzles sausage rolls.
Will he wake, once more at daybreak
Slumped down on the kitchen floor
Where at last he’d stopped his eating when his jaws could take no more.
Can he make it to tomorrow
To those three permitted meals
Now that dinner’s too soon over and the hunger’s all he feels,
Eternity before him.
And an agony of mind
Now that dinner’s too soon over and today’s food all behind.