So, who inspires us at the end of a long day's work,
bearing the sacred fire to these gormless layabouts
who'd sooner snuff it out with one sigh
of their Artist's breath, reeking of pizza and booze –
then, secret relief, the hungover morning-afters,
when we get the day off to visit our pals,
our brothers and sisters in this thankless enterprise,
though sometimes the envy's more than one can take –
what's my Sheldon to his Keats, my mongrel mutt
to her pedigree poodle, all puffed up
like a pink anemone; and of course the ones we get
are grey, not pink – grey from the settled dust
of too many indrawn eruptions, passion subdued
to trudging duty, as if they had a duty to anyone...
as if we had a duty to anyone,
for all the good we do.
Yet the Higher Ups seem to think
there is some point to our ministrations –
or why are we still at it, millennia down the line,
hovering now behind blue screens of death,
willing the resurrection and the life
into these poor half-corpses, as if our will
had anything to do with it.
The Higher Ups say it does.
I think the truth is simpler than that,
and harder.