The Book of Numbers

These cheque book eyes that peer on out

With fifty four long years in train

Would beg the question, steeped in doubt:

‘Are balances brought home the same?’

 

Are books of columns kept somewhere

With costs and profits to each name,

Does some laborious clerk inscribe

Each fall from grace, each cry of pain?

 

And is there some huge reference book,

A million pages long that gives

A code to score each passing thought,

To digitise each man that lives?

 

A ten for love that long survives

Its primal urge, a minus four

For each divorce, and minus three

For every child brought down, of course.

 

And how would grief be costed out?

A point for every tear or sigh,

Or nine to cover hearts of lead

That freeze in pain, but cannot cry.

 

For hope, ambition, faith and need

Are these the same for every man,

Or do the rich regain the creed

While poor men spill their lives like sand.

 

These cheque book eyes that peer on out

With fifty four long years in train

Appraise the wreckage of my life:

‘Are balances brought home the same?’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Chrisanne]

Great piece, as I kept reading the flamboyance of the piece increased. Such colourful use of words