We’re all in various stages of breaking down -
the limp, the wheeze, the snot, the fallen crown.
You search through my effects for my faded renown,
I offer myself to you as a hand-me-down.
We all could use a rest from breaking down.
In these ruins of what has been done and undone,
no hearts have been left to steal, astonish or stun -
nought but the rags and vestiges of fun.
The comic porter recites his latest bad pun
as Macbeth takes out his weariness on the sun.
The denouement is left to the ape and the clown -
the sort of stuff that makes Bob Johnson frown.
The devil, he reasons, can never be outrun.
So he picks some chords through verses he’s spun
on the crossroads where things are always breaking down.