Best Decrepitude Poems
You can take back my adulthood
I don't want it anymore
Please rescind responsibilities
My (horrific) credit score ...
I have no use for maturity
Expectations, "Dreams Come True"
Accomplishments and wisdom
Take back those, (and taxes, too) ...
I've no need for graying follicles
Creaking bones or RX plans
And that horrid label "middle-aged"?
FAR more than I can stand ...
Loss of teeth and twisted digits
Startling bursts of gas, et al
Santa bellies, moles and crow's feet
They're just killing my morale ...
This affliction they call "turkey neck"
Double chins and mem'ries, dry
(Each time I find myself somewhere
I'll be damned if I know why) ...
Losing friends because of politics
Or who takes the better meds
Whose brood is most prolific
(Can we do a count of heads?) ...
This "senior" thing is for the birds
Not worth its weight in gold
So I'd like a refund on my age
I'm damn SICK of getting old ...
Please, I want to be a kid again
With no worries, goals, or bills
I'd rather be tagged "immature"
Than "older than the hills" ...
I have studied this "decrepitude"
How it's changing me and friends
Thus I'm swapping my Life's Story ...
I don't like the way it ends.
"...though nothing can bring back
the time of splendor in the grass
of glory in the flower..."
---Wm. Wordsworth
"...in sickness and in health/
'til death do us part..."
Your mortal flesh decays
while mental failings mount
and I, powerless, mourn
your losses, in silent grief --
no slowing of the ravages
and time's neglect --
little chance, now, to correct
the many errors of the past.
I guard your fitful sleep,
remark upon your wrinkled brow
and sparse remaining hair,
hear hesitant, labored breath,
and determine to bear
(for how much longer?)
willful, spiteful actions,
bitter barbs, prompted by
what you really -- really! --
know -- by what we both
cannot accept and
refuse to voice aloud.
Spare me ill-considered thoughts
and tales of the enlightened sage
whose very basis of belief
arose in palpable assemblage
one late summer evening
while listening to his ringing ears,
as he lay soaking naked in a tub.
And holy writ of nether world—
its commands and promises
now in language thrice removed—
misunderstood when first uttered
in scarce remembered ancient tongue,
yet presumptive literal masters
hasten to opine.
Absurdities compound,
interstices of mind—
vacuformed and stolid—
deny calm reason’s abstract,
and flee truth’s sanctum,
dogma in their fond embrace,
awash in its decrepitude.
Humanity thus
in thrall of Mesmer’s haunt
sustains a tortured cadence
of greed, dishonesty and graft,
which now in tawdry bloat ascends,
as if arms of gods on the empyrean sphere
would open wide to greet.
Consider well and ponder such severely,
who would transcend the veil,
for wisdom gained and love prolonged
will surely ease the transit.
And those who favored having over being?
Their cherished worth is fled.
Their hubris now dismissed.
I love my rusty dusty car,
the most entrusted car, by far;
a sort of hey! Come out and play,
both here at home and far away,
a last hurrah, a real star,
my mighty, flighty, motor car.
I’ve had it now for quite a time,
I bought it new and in its prime.
It rumbles, crumbles, trundles on,
through life’s eternal marathon.
It is my friend, the best by far.
Just me - and my old motor car.
~
For Suzanne's 'Synathroesmic Cat' Competition.
It Sits There
It sits there,
like the old Chevy in the driveway,
empty, but for memories
of better days.
Days of running hot
on roads of steaming passion,
squealing tires speeding
the road to fulfillment,
time’s road markers
flashing past
in the dancing headlights
fading into lover’s dust.
It sits there,
just as big, as heavy,
as empty as the Chevy,
this worn out heart
seized by the decrepitude of age
drained of joy’s presence
mired in the melancholy
of the mind’s meanderings.
It sits there
blocking the driveway
of his life.
11/22/2015
submitted to Romantic Poem – poetry contest
sponsor SKAT A
OLD FOLKS
Gone those elder-respecting days -
An ancient could well topple over
As uncouth youth speeds around him
The Walmart express departs
My God!
Look what’s been left behind –
A multitude of invisibility
A moss grown obsolete
Decrepitude on slow parade
Antediluvian yes
But stored with lost value
And sense of a valued protocol
What is thought of as 20s showmanship
Has for most these gaffers and hags
genuine sweetness
And selfless humble humanity
What is lost?
Lost is that hopeful neighborhood
Of togetherness –
The virgin feel of flesh
Only sensed in imagination
Those first daring touches
And a certain joy of discovery
Ingrained through early years of
Experiment and experience
Yes all this lost in wrinkles of course
But the spirit might be reviewed
If only now could take a look
Dave Austin – age 87
He left this world as he entered, helpless
On the edge of darkness gasping for air
While I soundly slept unimagined in my bed
Got the call in the dark dead of night
Reasoning to myself it was a relief
Except reason rules the head, not the heart
And I was sorrowed he had passed
That in his final moments he was alone
This song of praise, this burial hymn
Heralds the end of decrepitude and pain
October came and went and you were gone
Under a grey and misty mournful sky
And so you have earned your peaceful rest
Reunited with Jackie - your one true love
To sleep in the hope of the resurrection
Written: March 2015
*This was my father’s favourite hymn.
Rest In Peace, Arthur Lionel Trestrail.
1921 ~ 2014
*Photo above is of Art and
a dear friend, Katy: 1981
Every day held the promise of a new adventure
with a myriad of new and exciting discoveries
unfettered by the hard experiences of life.
My world was eternal in its optimism,
love abounded in every situation
and time had no meaning;
for an excited child
the years tick
so slowly
by
.
a
day
was as
a thousand
years when you
were unable to see
the significance in the
passing of the hours, but
as the cycles of the seasons
sped by, the years grew shorter
and the constant pendulum swing
echoed the highs and lows of presence
within a contracted frame of decrepitude.
Live, therefore. Seize the day. Waste not one
moment in regret for what has gone before you.
Take chances. Make room for risk. Do something
every day which scares you-for the day will come
and all too soon ‘ere the tattler raps his final beat.
Once I was young,
now I'm an oldie;
Once I was shiny,
now I'm all moldy.
Dear old she! –
The sun is tanning and battering
Her skin,
Greying her hair, fading her beauty;
She’s gone frail!
Youth has fled her, and hence decrepitude
has befriended her –
For never the twain shall meet.
But still she rises in the dawn,
And she sweeps and she mobs and she cooks;
Without wee help to ease her daily chores.
Her days go over with fatigue in her body,
But she never whines!
And to add, at night she sleeps but with one eye –
Stretching her ears,
and not moving lest she misses falls of feet,
Of some naughty brutal man who may want to
break into her house, and ravish her.
It’s like in a forest,
With only herself to hear breathe;
And to hear sigh –
Her eyes fixed on the scrambling curtain
of a broken window,
Feeling the cold of a frigid wind
that blew the trees
To rustle with a noise burdened with guilt.
Agitatedly peeking at her locked door
Biting her tongue in the loneliness of her blues
and her qualms;
Her threadbare blanket blows dust and
makes her sneeze, and expectorate – ail!
Lightest things of her belongings blown away
from her ragged stands and whacks on the floor;
O dear old she! Never does she rest,
Because whenever she learns to slumber
Is already dawn –and has she to wake up
And accomplish her daily chores, again.
Broken bleeding heart
Tattered torn soul
Mind in shreds blowing in the wind
Like so many scraps of muddied linen
Blank eyes hiding an eternity of sorrow
Clenched fists with bitten nails
Restraining a life-long anguish
Milky flesh bearing the scars of self disgust
As if scratched by the venomous nails of Decrepitude
But really just the victim of a desperate mind
A defensive defenseless creature all in all
Sitting hunched in a blackened room
An opaque wall of shattered confidence
Fences her off from life and love
How she would love to tear down that wall
With her crumpled talons
To shake off her shroud of self hatred
To pretend to beauty and confidence
But there is no point in defying or denying
She can never be part of the world
For the world wants no part of her
A victim of the streets
She's one of the homeless,
A victim of society
She left the broken home,
Try as they may there was no fixing it,
Her parents deciding, to go their own ways,
She turned to drugs and drink
And lost control,
They said was nothing they could do, now she was in that hole,
She was lost they said both in heart and soul
And so be came a destitute,
In a world of decrepitude,
Open to being abused,
This now was the life for her
And it wasn't even her fault,
This is where she had been brought,
Down on her knees and she baulked,
In the face of responsibility,
She longed just to be free of this life
And this isn't right,
That this became her plight,
And there was no one there for her
And no support or care,
Welcome to the underworld,
She was now a junkie girl,
Turning tricks and getting burned,
Within a society that turns a blind eye,
That covers up its ears
And that ignored all of her tears
That she cries alone at night.
No Vanity Set For This Chap, No Way
(in praise of immortality)
Modesty an understatement,
when eyes chance
to look askew at looking glass,
mine reflection caught at a glance,
an old man's piercing dart
mirrors my blinkered acquaintance
faint recognition communicates
immediate tacit admittance
boyish good looks faded
with morning glory of youth
as senescence didst advance.
Similar to the strikingly handsome
Dorian Gray, this mortal
strictly shares penchant to affiance
a pact with father time, and
devoutly pledge allegiance
to remain forever unaffected
with ill fated biological alliance
even if mandate to pay
with my soul as sole allowance
to stave off the ravages of old age
maintaining glowing ambience
of boyish good looks, or...die...
twill be to late for an ambulance
to rush lifeless body
forthwith to hospital emergency,
an immediate appearance
of rigor mortis, a dead give away.
Cumbersome degradation of
corporeal essence breeds arrogance
born of desperation,
where chronological ascendance
robs cherished commodity,
thus pained angst
to suffer aging accidentally evinced
looking askance
hints of unavoidable assistance
when wracked by incontinence,
thus rendering incumbent orderly attendance,
hence awareness awakened to singular
choice as avoidance,
where vigilance espies silent auction
as decrepitude ousts clutching buoyance
quickly fading steamrolling capacitance
to cling (by the merest thread)
fat or slim chance
against depredations of...
inevitable circumstance trumpeting
"NON FAKE" absent cognizance,
sans horribly wizened wrinkled countenance!
It was as if constrictive vigilance
And tactical resplendent barbarism
Could transform monumental avarice
And endemic ruthless kindness
Into something wholesome, glorious
But this was clearly not to be
Neither capricious nobility
Nor veiled brutish fondness
Or kindred perverse piety
Could assuage sweet betrayal
Or hide the melodious wailing
Of the victims of amiable cruelty
Those scenes of obscene righteousness
Exaltation of attractive mischief
That immersion into irreverent bliss
Supplanted murderous heroism
With derelict wholeness
Honour no longer a covenant
Ignoble modesty courted cordial vulgarity
Pitting youthful decrepitude
And such evil delight as then reigned
Against perceived intellectual torment
Erecting a pseudo-mystic reef barrier
To counter intellectual penetration!
The din of darkness,
The cacophony of impostors,
The symphony of ignorance,
The decadence of progress,
Colonial heritage,
The empire of the pharaohs,
The agony of the pyramids,
The ordeal of free men,
The heat of infernal furnaces,
The burden of ancestral tortures,
The cradle of humanities chained to hatred,
The lament of immemorial torments,
The tale of forgotten shadows,
The macabre mass of intertwined destinies,
The accelerated decrepitude of fallen hopes,
The stigmata engraved on the parchment of time,
The funeral howls of a persistent memory,
The sepulchral embrace of an eternal night,
The tumult of trials in the scars of history,
The flashes of an untamed reality,
The epic of souls thirsting for redemption.
Proselytes and orators with fiery ideologies are ready to spark a conflict whose repercussions could shake the very foundations of society.
Land of asylum, sanctuary of xenophobes,
Doors of the chapels of drug addiction,
The reconquest of frustrated nostalgics,
The liberation of supremacist rantings,
The silence of the proletarians,
The promotion of social inequalities,
If monotheism were of divine essence,
Racism, slavery and colonization
Were not going to be sanctified,
In their so-called holy rags.
The conspirators demonize the plots of the marginalized,
The manipulators have an army of fanatical parrots,
The future of the earth is punctuated by catastrophes,
These madmen are already exploring the stars,
There will never be peace on this cursed planet,
The rich need the chaos generated,
Through war, misery, corruption and plunder,
The tombstones pile up,
Taciturn spectators of human tragedy, erected in a landscape devastated by the ravages of ephemeral power and limitless greed.
Political extremists and religious fanatics
Preparing for the final confrontation,
Africa will be the next global battlefield,
Sub-Saharans think they are escaping the horrors of poverty,
By crossing the Sahara on foot and swimming the Mediterranean,
While the multinationals of the new world order take advantage to plunder the natural resources of their subsoil.