Victor

Sprawled across three quarters of the room, but

he’s on the floor.

Fat as a Volkswagen Beetle and clad

in tuxedo and shirt and cravat,

he’s on the floor.

Tuxedo splashed with guacamole, burger sauce,

Veuve Cliquot and supermarket lager,

he farts like a mammoth.

He’s on the floor.

Balder than the northern ice-cap,

withering strands of what, deep in the forests of history,

were ginger and blond

straggle around his deaf ears

and his cricket-field eyes start to close as he daydreams

of youthful glories

and middle-aged sins

that sharpen such breadknives of guilt

and carve them so finally into his forehead

he cannot be bothered

to get up off the floor,

trousers all damp from the wrinkled old cock

that gave up on its duties

as he sat blowing bubbles and haloes of nicotine

in a jacuzzi of money.

He’s on the floor

and that is where he’ll finish.

Tomorrow they’ll silently come

and, childless, he will not be mourned.