A Year Of Disapointments

will last longer than any other type of year.
The number of dates on the calendar
will be as fixed as they ever have been,
but the events that punctuate it's length
make sure that our sense of time stretches
ultimately losing all it's 'give',
until it has nothing left to give but emptiness,
and an old ache that passes for a pulse.

The heart is a very strong muscle
which can withstand a lot of stress.

But as a physical repository of memory
it will only carry so much despair voluntarily.

New Definitions

'American style service'-the implication
being that the service is prompt and with a smile.
The truth is that you can't tell when the sincerity is faked. 

Signs Of Greater Age (17)

Listening to the news on the radio and losing concentration
well before the end of the bulletin, even though it is brief,
because you are more interested in how it will be satirised
by comics at the end of the week than you are engaged
by what the news is actually telling you about life today.