Skin Flicks and Toxicology

Age has its variables, distance some,
snow falls in all seasons, time belongs to none
No one.
Rhymes tick like pocket watches
In pockets of gentlemen on terraces under the sun.
The year I marked as a sea-change,
the event, coming as surprise
I bought insurance when I travelled and I didn't come on back.

That parting – with the romance of body horror schlock
Still my watch ticks, my skin is hide and I think
On you most minutes – sifting soil samples as
Idly I line up take after take after take
Just watching your centrifuge spin.
Age, it's said, has penalties some, but
also retribution springing from its fount
While I'm filming skin flicks beneath a vast Mediterranean sun
(with a ludicrous budget on this one)
And you've stopped filling your prescriptions,
You write the villainy of chemicals, make fertile
The barren again. This cigar I smoke after you
As the summer snows descend
I don't know the effluents used
And I'd hate to think your thoughts as they leach beneath the ground
I harbour no shred of guilt, and clasp the nonexistent hope
They'll call you in consulting on this one.
That you'll drag me over hot coals this time, on this one.