7 APRIL 1990, Page 37

'Life's a Bastard but Exciting'?

Tife's a bitch and then you're dead,' it said The notice in the back of a hot-arse car.

What soul-coward, wimp, wrote it, I wondered, Self-fancied macho man whose deep life-scar Nonetheless was more than he could bear?

Yet asked myself how I might answer Such a life-insulting slogan of fear With some equally facile one-liner?

And dwelled long-time upon the problem Till in myself I felt quite blackly lost Until I saw one thin and gleaming stem Up-pierce the bitter sea on which I tossed; And knew like one faith-bolted through and through Slogans of despair are never true.

William Oxley