A poem from Colin McGregor from the anthology It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn – available from the publishers Editions TNT.com
Cruel Tube
Oh toothpaste, why won’t you go back?
I hope and hope and hope and hope
And hope again I’ll squeeze you in
And replay all my darker turns
The tube is cruel, the tube is harsh
That vomits out its gummy soap
And never lets it home again
All my mistakes from whence they came
My boasts, my crimes, the time I won
And never took the open door
When I was nice, but nicer still
I could have been; and then that time
A life foregone; there was no point
There never is with dentifrice
You brush, you rinse, it vanishes
Washed down the drain, like so much paste
No plumber’s tool can get it back
No quantum trick can wake the cat
One day they’ll build a time machine
Or better yet, a neat device
That pumps the paste back in the tube
Exactly as it sat that year
The year we danced and laughed and sang
The joys and hopes, the dreams we shared
I dance no more; my back goes out
And modern music seems just noise
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