Retrospective

Now, when the paint was dry,

And the colors set,

It was painful yet

To an honest eye,

Here, where the walls were hung

With the sweat of years

The familiar fears

Since the hands were young.

Now in a battered chair,

With his tea gone cold,

And his hands grown old

He will sit and stare.

Here where his life is hung

With the blood in view,

There's been nothing new

Since the hands were young.

Schoolboys laugh in the streets below,

Laughter cruel at the long ago.

Fingers point through the bitter years

And the bitter tears.

Now when the paint was dry

And the die was cast,

It was clear at last

It was all a lie.

Red never left his hand,

And the blue was wrong

With the green too strong,

Never what he planned.

Now in a rumpled bed

With a night to kill,

He'll be painting still,

If he isn't dead.

Now he can only stare

As the old dream falls

At the mocking walls,

And the walls are bare.