Let me not this life deny, nor reject.
I live to write this verse most circumspect,
intent not to displease those powers perched
above my fate line, and whose lightest lurch
leads me to that final infinity
from whence no further writing is retrieved.

But today dawns a score and seven years
atop my balding crown, and scores of fears
and joys have passed its brown and bottled eyes,
and scores of truths its lips, and scores of lies.
To laugh today tomorrow next is not
the present which I awake have now got
Nor is it to sleep again without frown.
I’ve been up too long to dream myself adown
So prithee ask me not how old I am.
My tongue will tell, my teeth won’t understand.

But to tell, that would rob those yearly pillars,
which have withstood near three decades’ pillagers,
propping up the hope that their best is
above, atop, awaiting, viz a viz
the harmony in health inherent here.
To have become, and not to be, still, here.

To have become all dreams coalesced now,
to have become the fire behind my brows,
to have built pillars strong to support fame
not curios for naught but hubris’ acclaim,
to have become the man so often dreamed
would have a long lost boy’s small dreams redeemed.

To be merely a trawler of sublime
sinking small dreams until return the tide
is my simple occupation. A small man
of seven and a score, no more, captain
of this page and this alone, here
my home and hopeful vessel, ever here,
where time is a stack of pages and you
the greatest power perched substance imbue
these old and silly letters, born today,
and by your grace outstanding this birthday.