'Still Single After All These Years'

No great career or monuments,

a simple single life,

inconsequentially I've lived

(no doubt for lack of wife)

Oh, I've known women --had my woes,

but I ran away from joining,

for this I took their many blows

--and one, in fact, this morning,

from women scorned and weepy

who wanted to be joined,

from lovely ones, --and creepy--

 whose feelings I'd purloined,

I've battled to stay free, you see

till my brow's a sea of creases,

but as my little life runs down,
and spirit flesh releases

I'll take the blows I have to take

[ their fury hasn't ceased ]

and one claim I can proudly make:
I'm lashed, but  I'm not leashed.
-jorge999