as alzheimers bites

just as you think you’ve clinched the clichés

the rot sets in.

you find yourself staring down the barrels of

some stray sharpshooter’s sex pistols

as the day punks away, roaming

in the gloaming.

time is not on your side

                                                 a  n  y  m  o  r  e;

that knout-like

snap, crackle & pop,

that used to be you

is some synapses gone

soggy; metastasised

crud in an upturned bowl.

and so it goes,

a craps lost tape

an estragon last tope

steering defeat in your face

as the final curtain

curtails you for good.

& all the clever-dick catholicons

in the world

just obfuscate you further;

         &

won’t aid you to

evade the next one.

Vaughan Rapatahana