Later than you think

I had hoped for more than this:
perhaps not insight,
perhaps not even self-reflection late at night
upon the edge of what some purple prose might call abyss
but some call less than this
or that (which has, perhaps, too much
hyperbole; the desperate man's despairing crutch
upon which leans a barely conscious reminisce
of half-invented halcyon days of youth
or nothing that far back if one is here to tell the truth)
to persuade the tired mind that nothing is amiss
or that the great pretense that life's a bed of roses
or that performances, posturing and striking poses
compensate - in some way - for a dreamer's avarice.
.