Shaking Loose

There’s a ket­tle on the shelf that’s lost its spout,
And a crack runs through the plas­ter on the stair,
The lawn’s in need of seeding,
And the cel­lar wants swept out —
There’s so much that’s fall­en into disrepair.

And the axis of the planet’s shak­ing loose,
And every strand’s deter­mined to unwind.
Even as I lift the mallet,
Some­thing else goes out of use;
No soon­er bind it up, the bonds untwine.

There’s some flak­ing of the paint up in the hall,
And the bar­row in the yard has lost its wheel,
The pol­ish on the table top
Has cloud­ed and gone dull.
I’m made of flesh not ever­last­ing zeal.

There’s dust on every lin­tel hereabout,
And my mind’s become a lit­tle dusty too,
There’s cob­web in its corners
And the bottom’s falling out,
And I’ve real­ly not the faintest what to do.

I’ve for­got­ten where I put the cot­ter key
And with­out this jot, the scaffold’s insecure;
Still, I need to glaze the window,
Lest the pane falls free,
So, roll the die and all my sins abjure.

For the axis of the planet’s shak­ing loose,
And every strand’s deter­mined to unwind.
Even as I lift the rip saw,
Some­thing else goes out of use;
No soon­er bind it up, the bonds untwine.

The assem­bly in the lock is seiz­ing up,
And the fen­ce­post is split­ting in the heat,
A drip’s formed on the waterpipe,
Here’s a chipped old chi­na cup,
And my heart, I feel, is tick­ing just off-beat.

There’s mot­tling in the sil­ver of the mirror,
Still it reveals the craz­ing on my face.
The nick­eled latch is pocked,
My for­get­ful­ness gets queerer —
Los­ing hours hunt­ing phan­toms I misplace.

There’s a tear in my trousers needs a stitch
And a gas­ket in the spigot’s rot­ted dry.
The floor is due for waxing.
This lamp’s got a faulty switch.
It drooped a bit, so I propped up the sky.

Yes, the axis of the planet’s work­ing loose,
And every cord is hell-bent to unwind.
Even as I lift the pliers,
Some­thing else goes out of use;
No soon­er bind it up, the bonds untwine.

From deca­dence to deca­dence we go,
The bal­ance-pin has popped, the watch has stopped,
The crystal’s cracked
And all of time’s gone slow —
Wind­ing down, the sec­ond-hand has dropped.

The clockwork’s stopped and we’ve all gone out of use,
It’s all gone out of use, we’ve all gone out of use.
No soon­er bind it up, then the bonds untwine,
We lose the thread of rhyme, and we all run out of time.

We all run out of time.