Best Aged Poems
How do I shed the label
of a white oppressive man
Do I listen to the message
of Obama's "Yes we can!"
Perhaps I'll go out marching
With women take to the streets
Hold placards of "Black Lives Matter"
While trying to feel their pained heart beats
Still I wonder should I feel guilty
for horrible things my race has done
Or would it not be better
If I instead loved everyone
My friends are many religions
Jewish, Muslim, Christian Too
I've conversed with Jehovah witnesses
if you are Sikh I can learn from you
I'm unconcerned with color
or the kind of clothes you wear
I'm more interested in your story
and the heart you're willing to share
Don't see me as an enemy
Just because my skin is white
Understanding will replace our fear
Conversations can make things right
No one wants to be looked at
through the lens of a clouded eye
If you and I are both willing
a different logic will apply
In the end we are brothers and sisters
there is but one human race
Each person wants a sense of belonging
It's up to us to create that space.
Entry for Debbie Guzzi's " What is White?" Contest
Night sweats and crazy
Hot flashes and lazy
Mood swings and a body (?)
That looks pretty shoddy
Eating and bleeding and wanting to scream
These are a few of my Favorite Things
When your doctor
Says a shocker
that your
Uterus is a lobster
I simply remember to pretend I'm filled with glee
and then
I forget that my uterus is in atrophy
Durin' the time I was passing my urine
My faeces were falling to pieces
Submitted to Juvenilia Contest
13th March 2015
We two aged friends were caught today,
By shared glance. Words I could not say
entranced. Not you, new friends looked on,
As old friends spoke. The grey false dawn
Broke thoughts while round us sunset played
Once enemies trapped in the fray,
Alike, but souls between us lay,
When we our disparate colours donned.
We two aged friends.
Freed, parted, only you could pray
Cold comfort: if we’d met halfway
Then emptiness would be foregone,
Time would let quarrels be withdrawn.
You loved not, yet this eve you stayed.
We two aged friends.
When tomorrow's door is knocked upon.
To make you face that dreaded dawn.
Where can you turn to face the day.
When the love you've known has gone away.
Morning shadows cast new found light.
Leave you drifting like a cut loose kite.
To pick up the pieces all caught up in the wires.
The weary child chasing the wind till he tires.
Give me the potion to help calm my fears.
In life's after math of childhood years.
Now that all the fantasy's have died.
Soaking wet from the tears that you've cried.
We sojourn on till our day comes.
With beating heart's and turned up thumb's.
To breath in all life's air that's left.
To appease the past that's now bereft.
Soup Friends...
I thought I would share what my daughter send me this morning. She has poetry on here but doesn't come on much anymore.
Sara
Ralph Waldo Emerson
April winds are magical
and thrill our tuneful frames.
The garden-walks are passional
To bachelors and dames.
My(Doris' poem) counter poem for the allergic and arthritic persons.
April winds are nemesis
and chill our achy frames.
Garden walks become treacherous
to aged and their flames.
Love,
Doris
Flourished and nourished,
hair locks resembling branches,
I gaze as it dances —
when blowing, he looks glowing.
Twenty years had passed,
but still, I last.
I may have ripened,
but I'm still the same berry, same fruit,
slightly fragmented, a little indented,
not demented.
You got a sample of me when I was at my prime,
taught a few tricks — oh, to replay our time.
Let me discover what you have learned;
still, I yearn —
like the eternal flame, I burn.
Do not read me as if I come with the label “handle with care,”
I am more than able.
Only sixty-five, still alive!
Round-bodied, the taste of sweet and sour —
come and devour during lunch hour.
Do not guzzle — sip slow,
take the time to enjoy this aged wine as we intertwine.
Oh, how you've practiced —
glad to discover upon this mattress.
The Aged Man
Authored by Chuck Keys
There is a sadness inside of him,
Draped by layers of heartaches and disappointments,
Insulated with his long beard, thickly white eye brows,
Unkempt brushy long dense white hair,
Dry peeling cracked lips, slightly ajar,
Showing his smoke stained chipped teeth,
Wearing a dark, soiled, bulky long scruffy ankle length coat,
Two buttons were missing,
With a 2" uneven tear at the bottom of its left side stained pocket,
A dirty powder-blue weathered wool and leather hat, with ear flaps down,
It was a long cold night, in mid-January, the month of his birth.
He moves like a man covered with fear and age, and maybe hunger too.
Mornings and evenings are but doorways
In and out of his leftover forgotten soul,
To the long endless days and nights, forlorn and grey.
He meanders about with a slow cautious gait, head down often times,
Eyes more closed than open, squinting even in the dark unlit night,
Torn gloved hands (with a large irregular frayed hole in the palm of the left),
Each hand fisted tightly for warmth,
Arms tightly at his side, stationary, not swaying,
Protectively wrapping himself inside,
Or just holding himself, maybe for warmth or some unexplained reason.
His life is full, the years buried deep inside.
The pounding aches inside, remembers his early years,
Ages ago, wrapped and protected inside his large family,
But never a part of it, not inside,
Always outside searching, for what can't be found, ever.
His own family that slowly left him was remembered,
Material children today, groundless at best,
That have no memory of what was,
Only what is or what will be.
Grandchildren that lacked life inside his hug.
The pounding aches inside; smirks, sometimes,
Knowing time and space, loving and giving, peace,
Remedy for all that ails.
He knows only what he knows,
He loved, loves and will always love.
Even alone, he is in joy, at peace.
The old man walked into his last mile, a short while ago,
His slow cautious gait, one small step after another, and another,
As the gates opened, he turned and looked behind,
Frowned and smiled,
With nothing left to say.
“Birth day” is the actual day one exits from the womb, (thereafter, “birthday”, is but a colloquialism for the anniversary of that birth). Well … today is mine. I’m finally old enough to drive … (times 4.56!). Now, I’m old enough to vote … (times 3.476!). One of my sons, too, this month, will become a half-century old … which makes me realize: I’m older’n dirt!
It is truly amazing: Once you reach this age, it really, truly is incomprehensible that so many years have passed since taking that first breath – because our minds don’t allow us to think we’re “aged”! Our thoughts tell us we can still lift that couch … or a 100 lb. sack of seed … or a box of twenty books. But … the actual attempt proves our minds still have their roots in the concrete of yesteryear, while our bodies are entrenched in the reality of … today, (that’s easily confirmed by a quick glance in a mirror!) Contrary to popular belief … we are NOT as “young as we feel” … and to defy reality by allowing our minds to trump our body’s limitations, when it comes to physical exertion, is courting a hospital stay – or worse.
For those of us whose physical attributes have waned, we have great difficulty in accepting the fact that we now are relegated to the task of “watching”, not “doing”. That’s the final hurdle we, of necessity, must overcome before we can truly accept … aging. Our children, whom we used to tell and guide in what they could/should do, and when … have now matured. We’ve taught them as best we could, and it is now their turn to drive the carriage – and, if we’re lucky, and don’t try to “boss” them, we may be asked to become passengers.
There comes a time when our day in the sun becomes a rocking chair in the twilight. We need to prepare ourselves to recognize that change of circumstance and situation.
It’ll be difficult for some of us … because WE’VE always been the one “in charge”. If we are to survive with our dignity intact and retain relationships with those we love … we have to find a way to hand over the reins – and MEAN it – to the next generation which we ourselves have spawned.
Our remaining decisions will be: Whether or not to re-bait that fishing hook … or what channel to watch … any decision more meaningful will need to be made by … our kids.
Thirty years since Mrs Meckin
Said "Sian, who are y' markin'?"
on the hockey field
Wind chillin'
Legs freezin'
Knuckles reddenin'
Clutchin' the rubber handle of my Mum's
old hockey stick
Always third from last to be chosen for The Team
"No, not again, please don't let it happen again"
So humiliatin'
Bro always gets in
"Don't worry, Sian. Music's your thing"
So, moving house again with three kids
Out of London, away from the smog,
the stress, the jumbled up head
To the house with the gate.
A gate at the end of the garden
Through
To the Tennis Club
Narnia
The Secret Garden
A Whole New World
Of Head Space, blue sky, breeze and humour
Leave the worry of how the kids are doin'
The washin'
The cookin'
The state the house's in
The husband not returnin'
Til gone midnight on the cancelled train
Standin' in a huddle by the club house
Nervous laugh and a "How do you do?"
No wimbledon tennis whites
Just the baggy top to cover the downward sag of
Three labours, excess Chardonnary and taramosolata dip
Ball straight up to endless blue
Oh coach, "how DO you DO?!"
Ladies swooning
Chopper grip ready
Backhand, volley, rally, smash
Dash
For the ball
Which is just in
A new beginnin'
Tall, dark and handsome
With a muscular physic
He's everything a woman could ask for
He even has an impressive technique
Smooth as an aged
Bottle of fine wine
And filled with words
That’ll make a woman
Loose her mind
How can there be such a man
That’s just that sweet
And still be called a heterosexual
Never in my wildest dreams
Have I met a man
That’s plushed, polished and oh so sleek
Like a well written book
That I could critique
I’d give him nothing but rave reviews
And awards up the creek
Mother, Middle Aged.
Forlorn, she sinks into the abyss of a middle aged
mother, her pupae no longer the apple of her eye.
Baffled, she sees her cocoon tear open and barge
hastily, fumbling in quest of sham grown ups’ pride.
A mother she remains, middle aged. Spiteful and void.
Ambitious once, a baseball pro,
For sure I thought I’d be,
But games I watch now let me know
Old men are just like me.
In fact today to Minute Maid
I went to cheer the ‘Stros
And harshly learned all those who played
Held heads grey barely knows.
In bleachers near another chap
With pecs transformed to flab,
Exclaimed in bold “Forget this crap!”
“Let’s go to Marble Slab!”
How strange, I thought, this guy would leave
Before the game began,
While still his spouse, if you’ll believe,
Remained though left her man.
Now curious, I had to ask
So then approached his wife,
I said, “What gives? Where hides your flask?”
“What booze supplied this strife?”
She said, “No-no, let me explain”
In deeper voice than mine,
“We’re not from here, we’re from New York
And both steer clear of wine”
“What happened was, in our hotel,
An accident to moan,
Poor Charlie grabbed my Estrogen
And I Testosterone.”
9/19/2016
Submitted for Sara Kendrick's Which of the Four
Would you Choose Contest
The Aged Youthful Gentleman
He rested in a wooden chair-his good times almost had,
The aged youthful gentleman-the father of my dad.
He uttered rarely a word if it weren't amusing or wise,
The aged youthful gentleman dealt not with waste nor lies.
And he was my shelter, security and pride,
He lives on still within me tho' some do swear he died.
He was abundantly gifted with story and catchy rhyme,
The aged youthful gentle man who carried not a dime.
His only luxury in life was kept in an old tin chest,
A shot of 'fer me heart' brandy each eve before his rest,
The remainder of his income helped fill plenty of need,
For a son who'd a sickly wife and 8 wee mouths to feed.
I suspect he's traded that old wooden chair for a jewelled throne,
The aged youthful gentleman who made his house our home.
Early this morning, he sits hot front of my desk
Stared on him and questions accumulated,
Why this, why that, why you attract my eyes
With your tasty-brewed-hot aroma which makes me uptight!
Aged like the finest wine ever stacked
Distilled and refined from raw extracts,
Extract which waited days or years to pass
From the processing standard of a Master's touch!
Brewed and grinned in circles and continued pounds
After surviving the raging heat of consuming fire,
Fire that brings chemical reaction and releases heat and light
Which you consumed and made you master life.
Maestro...why I like you?
With my age, I am not supposed to be with you...
Yet you tasted good, you fill my cup
You excite me with what and how you being packed!
Inner Whispers