Testosterone

I knew a boy called Cambell Laird; where others wouldn’t, Cambell dared,
he fell off tables, fell off chairs, and often tumbled down the stairs.
One Thursday morn when he was home, Cambell fell and broke a bone,
his worried mother called the doctor (this event had really shocked her).
The doctor cried, ’I’ll set the bone, but I cannot cure testosterone.’

His teachers tried and tried in vain but then resorted to the cane,
He climbed through windows, fell down drains, cocked a snook and called them names
He hated sums, abhorred writing, but of course, excelled at fighting,
When he finally left for home, they cursed the lad’s testosterone.

As he grew and got more bold, it looked as if he’d ne’er grow old.
He drove his motorbike at great speed, and dreamed of some heroic deed,
He won some medals in the war, but just as often broke the law.
Pure aggression set the tone, a product of testosterone.

He went to church and he got wed; and on that night he broke the bed.
There followed sons, and none were bad, just very boisterous like their dad.
Then Cambell’s marriage went awry; his roving eye led him astray,
his poor wife ended up alone and blamed it on testosterone.

He made some effort to atone and tried to mend his broken home,
but all his striving came to naught, (his wife had met an astronaut).
He went to pieces; turned to drink, and even went to gaol I think,
and when his thoughts began to roam, he often wept for what he'd done.

As he grew old and very grey, this steroid worked another way.
Liver spots surged o’er his hands, a certain sign of failing glands.
Hair grew down his swollen nose-(where blood sojourned and missed the toes)
it sprouted from his enlarged ears- a beacon to the passing years,

He spent his last days in a chair, a role that he found hard to bear,
his body wasting, losing hair - no energy, just blank despair.
‘Too late,’ this desperate soul cried out, ‘too late’ they heard him shout,
I never tried to do what’s right or curb my appetite’.

Now he’s gone to make his peace with Him that wrought his body,
A surfeit of that androgen had made his life so shoddy,
What’s left of him lies peacefully below the granite stone,
a victim of the stuff of life, that’s called testosterone.