Ionesco Rhinoceros still occupies
The stage that is offered so kindly
So there he is, with his weak sighted eyes
Staring at me rather blindly
Don’t worry my dear, soon we’ll be forbidden
I belong to the countless minority
My act in your play was so poorly written
You need others to feed your authority
This civilization, where everyone’s lost
Blamed for inappropriate views
Clashes with me, cause I’m paying my cost
Only for things that I use
I don’t make excuses, I always agree
With slander and hatred I get
I'm taking for granted their thoughts about me
It’s cheaper than arguing all that
May your Rhino restrictions be harder than ever
All satires of the past become real
I find myself punished through trial and error
Empirically off the deal
Red geranium leaves by my doorstep I see
The winds from Atlantic blow cold
The Rhinoceros people jog on around me
It seems that they never get old..
I walk the halls of ghosts.
Of all who came before.
The memories of the foundry floor
Reverberate in my mind.
I remember silhouettes of friends;
See them smiling there.
I see toolbags, slung up on their backs.
Hear their crazy laughs.
Their grunts of strain. Their eyes in pain. As bolts found home.
As my mind wanders these halls, still entrenched in work,
Thoughts loop large to previous days.
Wishing for days gone by—to reach and grab a piece.
Stuck in the here and now—more in back than in front.
Training new by old. Futures to reveal.
Fresh hands to shake, and smiles to share...
Toolbags of their own.
Perhaps a sign of times, as future comes and goes.
Perhaps a sentimental fool in hallways, I suppose.
- Debra
Neon and noise.
Night-world horrors.
Whose reflections, whose echoes
Showed not, nor shook
Its panes and doors.
Conscience-singing.
Waywardly flapped.
Strange appeal! Once sough but through
A moonlight kiss.
A round dance. Clapped.
Fire in the belly, fire in the eyes
Fire as protection or a smoke disguise
Fire laden rhetoric, incendiary lies
Fire filled with warmth, fire follows drought
We'll keep rubbing sticks together till the last one burns out
We have played with fire ever since we stole it from the gods
We're bound to keep on playing cause we like to play the odds
Someone will get burned
Some will just burn out
There isn't any wonder cause the scars'll leave no doubt
Fire raging wild, keep it from a child
No way to make it stay controlled
No way to keep it mild
It has raged throughout the ages it has never been snuffed
From the lips or from the pages til we say we've had enough
Old and Alone Through the City
Old and alone, autumn wanders bare through the city,
A smoke of memories coiling around the streetlamps,
The woman dissolved into the arms of another mirage,
And the dog grew old begging for the warmth of days.
The child who was never born wanders through the fog,
A bodyless shadow knocking at autumn's gates,
And the wind and the sun, old brothers of a lifetime,
Lean on each other on the steps of forgetting.
The old organ-grinder, with his leg of wood and dream,
Cranks out a melody rusted like a wound,
The old prostitute sells her shadow, the unclosed
Coffin of her longing under a pagan moon.
Someone in a graveyard whispers a song of wax,
An old head trembles, hollow as a scorched bell tower,
The tree shakes its leaves like a final summer,
The idiot from the commercial smiles, a wounded mask.
The whole city trembles, full of loneliness,
Crowds of old young people flow like a river of wax,
All of them, everything, old and alone, carrying in their chests a fortress
Of silences fallen to their knees, under the same bitter snowfall.
American cheese, if you please
Not Taiwanese or Japanese
Nothing Maltese or Vietnamese
American cheese, if you please
You say I must try Swiss Cheese
Lebanese and Nepalese
At Chanukah, ‘Monterey of Maccabees’
Farvoss?* American cheese, if you please *'What for?' (Yiddish)
But surely you’ll take a bite of Siamese
Portuguese, Pekinese or Paraguese
And how can you neglect Senegalese and Congolese
Not now. If you please, American cheese
Is our diner a narrow-minded provincial
Nisht!** ~ she’s old, a Jewish immigrant NYC election official **No! Not! (Yiddish)
I feel you near even when you're not here,
even when your face no longer lingers in my head,
when the wind no longer carries your scent,
and my body starts forgetting the feel
of your featherlight touch.
I feel your presence every single minute,
even your soft voice whispering in my ear.
I remember your smile,
the one that used to melt my heart,
and even your words that cut deep
and left a scar.
Yet I also remember the way
you used to gaze into my eyes,
as if I meant the world to you.
I remember how those glances
always made me fall in love with you,
and how, every single day,
I kept losing a little piece of you.
Not a single crumbling house will remain.
People on the pavements, hawkers, garbage,
Only then, a city painted on a scroll, ding-dong.
For the household fish to be cut,
a ash-boti is needed,
not a knife or a dagger.
This city, you see, was once,
in primordial times,
a forest, where deer and tigers
also lived. Keep thinking about it.
Catwalks on the ramp,
soft, gentle feet, within the dreams
of sitting beside the lotus pond,
rural Bengal is becoming far too genteel,
chairs, tables, curtains,
birthday cakes,
Bhadra-month Bhadu Puja, people
dancing and singing, swaying their waists
in courtyards,
a little rice, a little money.
I keep gazing at the pond,
the afternoon pond.
I am an old-fashioned man.
Sparrows and mynas, walking in tiny steps,
squirrels racing past,
the inarticulate map of nature.
I don't know why I am so frightened,
I don't know why I am so delighted,
I don't know, the birthing room, the constellations,
I am thinking about the price of everyday things,
thinking about an ordinary life,
thinking about an ordinary world.
Just now, I had a cup of tea,
a cigarette
Dearest Ancestors, elders, concerned with the ways of the world,
Clearest for you, the pain you know, you see again unfurled.
Disappointed in the dream you once held when young,
It's annointed to us now, even if our feeling's wrong.
Wisdom you wish you could wield as your strength has waned
Hear it in the children, when they once more say: we hope to gain!
Oma, you have worked and loved and lived in good faith,
So I, want you to know, youth's reach is in its wake.
The tree in my backyard has been watching me since I was three.
As time passed, its gaze has never set me free.
In the light, it gives a shadow;
in the dark, it hides the light.
This tree makes my life just not right.
Like the other night, it knocked on my window, gave me a fright.
This damn tree is trying to take my life;
I know it looks at me like a killer with a knife.
So with an axe, I hacked it to the ground,
And joyfully, wildly, I danced around.
When I was only five.
My dolls were the big thing,
we would sit and sing.
Then my tricycle I learned to drive.
At fifteen I was dating.
Boys were sure fickle,
some of their words were like a pickle.
We loved to go roller skating.
Now thirty is life half over?
Today is a new day,
no more hair of gray.
Maybe I need a new makeover.
At fifty should I retire?
Many days are way too long,
is life a game of ping-pong?
Some days I feel like I want to expire.
I never thought I would reach seventy.
Here I am,
drinking hot tea and eating strawberry jam.
Seventy is fun and not my enemy.
I love old book stores.
The smell and look of old books,
sets my heart a pumping.
At home I have my favorite stops,
checking out each shelf carefully.
When I travel,
I look up stores before I leave home.
My list can be short or long,
with a book or two or three following me home.
This summer I found an old book,
a book jumped into my shopping cart saying,
please take me home.
I have been reading on and off for weeks,
last night I got to the end.
I could not wait to see what was going to happen,
The Last Page Was missing.
I look around
is anyone like me
like a strange sound
you hear but can't see
is there anyone
who acts the same
as I do?
I dream aloud
but wake in silence
I'd like to fit in
but i don't have a licence
is there anyone
who acts like me
I have a dream
That I find a stream
where i can live and breathe
could you believe
someone like me
run around
until you find yourself
a hurried sprint
and jump right
off the shelf
into the sea
where i find me
Play hard to get
someone you'd
wish you'd met like
hotel vacancy with a room to let
come inside my brain
and you'll see a view
maybe something old
or maybe something new
A very old lady- who is not tall,
told me, her cat is lost though she did call;
she has just moved in next door,
oh, what a messy decor . . .
found cat - chased cat- old lady had a fall !
There was an old man from Keokuk,
Who suffered a spate of bad luck,
He said with a grin,
When he finally got in,
I couldn't buy a break for a buck!
Old Categories
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age, beautiful, christmas, classic, death, depression, friendship, getting, humanity, life, love, nature,
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Definition | What is Old in Poetry?
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Related Poetry Forms
age old, aged, ancient, antique, crumbling, decrepit, elderly, former, fossil, gray, mature, old fashioned, old time, original, outmoded, primitive, senior, tired, traditional, venerable, veteran