I’ve lived a hundred lifetimes, and they’ve never ended well;
I’ve been burned and drowned and hanged and stabbed and shot.
I’ve killed a thousand people trudging in and out of hell,
And while most of them deserved it, some did not.
I’m a warrior and a trickster, a hero and a fool,
Soldier, sailor, poet, killer, thief;
And in all my misadventures, there is just one certain rule:
Every chapter of my story ends in grief.
It’s not love of happy endings that keeps me in the game,
But the game itself that keeps me coming back;
There is magic in each journey that is never quite the same,
And I’ll laugh as I am broken on the rack.
Here’s to Terror, here’s to Beauty, here’s to Horror, here’s to Joy;
Here’s to Life and Love wherever they are found.
I’ll take the hard transitions, and admit I’m Fortune’s Toy,
If that’s the price of playing one more round.
Paul Haynie
January 20, 2006
This poem was going to be “Hyena’s Song” from the beginning, but that is completely meaningless to anyone who doesn’t know me pretty well, and a more approachable title came along with the last stanza.
Until further notice, this is also my epitaph…
Uncle Hyena