Classic Poem

I feared these present years,
The middle twenties,
When deftness disappears,
And each event is
Freighted with a source-encrusting doubt,
And turned to drought.

Talent, felicity--
These things withdraw,
And are succeeded by a dingier crop
That come to stop;

But it dies hard, that world;
Or, being dead,
Putrescently is pearled,

I kiss, I clutch,

Like a daft mother, putrid
Infancy,
That can and will forbid
All grist to me
Except devaluing dichotomies:
Nothing, and paradise.