This Is How Life Feels When You Get To Be My Age

THIS IS HOW LIFE FEELS WHEN YOU GET TO BE MY AGE I have a general philosophical precept Life is in general a bowl of cherries except When someone stabs me in the back who didn’t oughta From a completely unexpected quarter I mean it’s ok if some dude whom I don’t like or trust Has a go at me and feels he must But if my wife tells me I continually bug her with my fidgets And then she runs off with a team of one-legged circus midgets Or my kids sell their hand-bound volumes of my poems To buy a ton of horse manure to mix with the garden loams And even the cat turns down my offer of warm milk To go next door and sleep on sheets of silk Or if a poetry contest excludes me simply because my name Is unacceptable, maybe because I am black, or lacking in fame, Or because I’m Methodist, and gay, and Republican, and from East Lansing, Then I say to myself, well here’s the thing: If, along with my poem entry, I’ve slipped in fifty bucks, Well then how can I be excluded? I mean shucks - Rules is rules but when I’ve already paid to be in the winners’ list I feel I have the right, and I just gotta insist, Cos midgets and fidgets don’t amount to squat And sheets of silk or loads of horse manure is a lot But my name’s my pride and joy and I am proud to add it (But I fear to do it again in this contest or I’ve had it), So in this contest I will remain anonymous Though I guess the details writ here are just about synonymous With a name I do not dare speak - at risk of exclusion But I’m pretty sure this extra fifty bucks will lessen the confusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Written - with great affection - for Nancy Jones's Contest "This is how life feels when you get to be my age..."