Compass

Bonfire of Vanities

Of bonuses you burn of borrowed time
fistfuls of twenties* are not sad enough;
you have to fire dark spirits, crying tough
to be so neatly on your slickest rhyme.

Familiars of oof* and decadence
conduct you in their rituals; your cogs
turn and the lathes shape mystifying fogs
others lose themselves in. Plucked out from thence

you say you will be. But it's sharp pretense.
You, mad in the paper bag, must jump, Jack*
into worse and worse until you shake the curse.

The curse is love. You cannot reimburse.
Shake it till faces of the dice shall crack,
kaleidoscopes spill out the jeweled hearse.

..................

*twenties - the highest common denomination of paper cash in UK
*oof - money: from Yiddish 'ooftisch'.

*'There was a man, he went mad,
He jumped into a paper bag;
The paper bag was too narrow,
He jumped into a wheelbarrow;
The wheelbarrow took on fire,
He jumped into a cow byre;
The cow byre was too nasty;
He jumped into an apple pasty;
The apple pasty was too sweet,
He jumped into Chester-le-Street;
Chester-le-Street was full of stones,
He fell down and broke his bones'*
Anon.