Another Spent Soldier

There he goes sipping vinegar,
Sucking on toothpicks

And carrying freshly punctured
Packets of pills,

Another spent soldier,
Another old goliath.

He chewed on the gristle
Of childhood ambition,

Gnawed on the rind
Of long lost successes

And pushed grace
To the edge of his plate,

To the side where the bones
Piled up high.

Where once he was mighty
There now just sit footprints,

A ghostly bent bad smell,
A growing damp problem,

A newly scattered trail of dust
Wilfully abandoned.