mouth agape

Mouth agape as he moves about,
Makes him look like some average lout,
Mustache once hid the mouth agape,
All that changed with fickle fate.
Diagnosed with cancer of the lung,
Face drawn and haggard, shoulders hunched,
Mover and shaker, now beaten and old,
Shoulders hunched from a heavy load.
His once full shock of hair now barren,
Hanging loosely are the clothes he’s wearing,
Trudges through the office without a word,
Used to fill the office with loud long bursts.
Laughing and yelling, trumpeting his arrival,
Everyone awaits his eventual revival,
This little office is his baby,
Stuck at home, he was going crazy.
Never had kids, gave his life to the department,
As his stock rose, so ours also went,
But without the captain at the helm,
We floundered into unknown realms.
We have taken on so many projects,
Like so much water flooding the deck,
The ship is slowing sinking,
No one seems to have any inkling.
Will the hair regrow, will he regain his strength,
We can only wait and see, we have to go the length,
Meanwhile we have to sit and watch,
The shadow of the man cancer has debauched.
Some say philosophy should drive policy,
But seeing for myself this seems a fallacy,
Personality seems to trump anything,
Charisma and charm decides who shall be king.
So our fate rests on his shoulders,
We employees are his loyal soldiers,
Doing his bidding we ride into battle,
To the slaughter we go like so much cattle.
Mouth agape as he silently watches,
Regurgitating repeating everything he taught us,
Body wracked with pain and disease,
Hanging on bitterly to his beliefs.
His life’s work hangs in the balance,
He has never backed down from any challenge,
But the king has fallen and shall not return,
His kingdom shall be set to the torch and shall burn.
This last battle shall break him and we will mourn,
And decry our fates with anger and scorn,
On our shields his body we shall carry,
And with him our own dreams we will bury.