Best Atrophy Poems
for it, the hot-blooded campus youth
booed and cheered, fought and cheated;
adrift in the hysteria of intramural sports,
the losers wailed, the victors jubilated;
now dusty, it leans on a heap of rubbish,
the Overall Champion trophy once golden,
lost in the rubbles of the demolished gym,
a relic of a youthful season long forgotten!
She'd had her round in Life's blighting furnace,
Where stealthy wear and age blurred her face.
Dents shot where dreamy dimples had grown,
Lightning smiles usurped by involuntary frown.
In her livelier turns by Midas' glowing shores,
She galloped and gleamed like grated brass.
Time’s grim cankers fell on the rarefied feast
Of the cutest eye ever cast on envious glass.
If as a reincarnated phoenix's her gone grin
Could twirl and morph into its erstwhile arc,
She’d anon repulse her timing nemesis’ sin,
And give her faded glories an eternal spark.
Bereft of that fairy fowl's sheen-saving magic,
She’d to inevitably brave decay's stoic scythe.
Merry rhyme sung her sweet charms to mimic
Faded to ethers wherein dead beauties writhe.
No looker who her earth-blemished visage espies,
Can know she was the fairest star in kindlier skies.
I sigh my song of loss
Profound sense of frustration
At your hair now brittle and coarse
Which fuels my sense of desolation
You’ve been old my whole life
But strong in belief – and mind
Never guessed it could come to this
Or that I’d possess thoughts this unkind
Horrified by suffering
Amazed by the little things
Your paper-thin delicate skin
Each revelation acts like bee stings
Malignant emotions
Swollen with a sense of shame
Loved ones try to absorb your pain
Yet I’m searching for someone to blame
Ocean frost in my heart
I clutch to such small details
Firm grip or large blue eyes open
Former comfort of my hometown fails
May 5 you turned 95
Autumn has moved to winter
When did I last see my Grandma?
Easter Monday: for that I’m bitter
Church associations
Are hard for me to accept
Just like cellular atrophy
It represents what I wish to reject
For too many years
I have not lived with any passion
I have smelled nothing, not a single flower,
I have not heard the summer bird call out to his mate
Nor enjoyed one single note of her reply
How does the hour slip by so fast?
These three years of unliving, I have known intimately
only fear and doubt as constant companions
Weary, I am the aching bones of my former self
a dried husk, papery, abandoned
Banished from me all traces of warmth
winter walks constant by my side
the wraiths of love's memory vanishing before my every step
dissipate as breath into frosty air
What use have I,
for these eyes that do not see the beauty spread before me
In the glut of spring
I wither and fade
left to await the day
I too will become
spirit torn from flesh
flesh pulled from bone
and parted before me
the veil of Illusion
as I step through.......
Dearest Ezra,
did you ever dream one day,
that all the songs should cease?
No music in the cafes play
since the baddest news arrived
A stone cold note told of the change,
no time to grieve, or make our peace
did it wither, man, or did we contrive
in sympathy with the new and strange?
No church bells rang; no sermons read,
a simple phrase of passing, plain
ol' frowny face; sweet poetry's dead
let no one sing, nor dance again
Look at you, faded;
I hope you get your smile back,
it was so cosmic;
Cataclysmic atrophy
to transform into abyss.
A trophy, cold gilded praise, mocks me …..in ageless silence.
John G. Lawless
©1/29/2019