Another Complete Circle

Once upon a time
The posterboy,
he used to smile
on the glossy covers
a fake, manufactured smile

Today, the magazines
glow with faces
devoid of cracks
in the skin, or rashes
and full of new age
faked neutrality

“Oblique! Oblique!”, she cries
I look stunned
I thought I was
getting somewhere
But then she knows
where I’m going
before I know

Life is like a river
we pollute
with our dirty laundry
rotting carcasses
and plastic waste
so it chokes
stagnates, stops

I look at the
whole morbid affair
named life
(someone’s cruel joke)
with a resigned
almost reluctant apathy
but then she knows
I’m more coward than
I’m objective

A fresh breath of air
takes away the stench
of the human progress
and I wait
for another one,
albeit metaphorical,
that will take
the stench out of
this slow decay

Meanwhile, the posterboy
of yore and the now
keeps smiling
wiping away every trace
of the contemptuous smile
from my wrinkled face
life almost always comes
a complete circle