Old Timers Poems | Examples

Movements

    Life moves time along
       relentlessly

    Old-timers swept along 
       resistantly

Prospecting for Gold

   Prospecting for gold 
     in a mosquito-infested ravine
   The junior explorers all mighty keen
     to prove their skeptics curmudgeony scolds

   And sure enough, they return all gap-toothed smiles
     pans overflowing with rare and precious gems 
   The kind prospectors turn up in sequestered mountain glens
     at the bottom of creeks that twist and turn for miles

  Old-timers gawk at the kids in wonder 
     their colored stones, all shapes and sizes
   containing abundant suspicious surprises  
     ~ Whose rock garden did these little ones plunder

We Kids Sled

We kids sled
past the home of so-long-ago.
We kids wear
snow-black boots and warm
mittens. We kids sled,
on a cold sunny day,
across the Vale’s backyard;
    Old-timers let
    us kids sled
through flurried laughter,
cheeks frozen-red,
and out all day,
     it seemed.
What was Mom doing,
I wonder? I wish I could
dust off the window
     and see her
and get a tear in my eye.
The teardrop shape is frozen
in time. We kids sled
without a care in the world.

Jim's Glimpse of the MerWoman

Jim had only glimpsed the gorgeous merwomen once
But he never forgot her gray-eyed stare
She had bored pinpricks through his surprised eyes
Was her hair real or imagined?

Jim recalled coral, starfish and pearls at her crown.
Had she been a mirage, or had she been real?
His boat returned to Dolphin Bay each year for thirty-six years
He hoped to get another glimpse of the beautiful siren

We old-timers knew the story
Jim had told it in every tavern and restaurant down the coast.
Some figured he met with the merwomen upon his death
Unsure, I sincerely hoped that this might have happened for him.

senile stork

Senile Stork is out of control again
He brought a full sized eight-year-old to the newcomers
They were irritated to the max

Why don’t they retire that old bird?
It is not easy getting rid of these old-timers
Especially when they are not willing to go

He bit the hand off the last person who tried to boss him
“We can get used to her!” the new daddy said after hearing this.
“She is darling!” said his wife.

Corner of the Bayou in New Orleans

Old timers say there’s a corner of the bayou in New Orleans
Where booby footed pelicans and pink lovebirds are seen
in a totem made along with turtle who has a needle nose
and wildly colored chameleon who is wearing clothes

At the bottom of this spirited display is a large crock
Pretending to be a piece of driftwood or a purple rock
But if you see a large red eye open, you’d best be on your way
For this giant crocodile is fierce, and he does not play.

The Dying Breed

Old timers, history;4th/5th generation
The friends we knew, now just memories
A forgotten world past, new bringing
AI, technology; what is it we become
The past barely existing, rotting away

Like dust is to the wind
Particles of human flesh decay
Our worth, only the price of money
Our dignity, forgotten; lost among mankind
A broken society disarrayed in their path

Dreams of life we consume our souls in screen
Sense of hope shatter in riot hate
Morality crushed among the ruins of today
A free nation they yell as we pay the price
Still slave to man we shout for change
But to man, the reason we die out our breed

All we lived for and fought to achieve
The constitution, added/taken from like Bible
The new gen, the dying breed we become sin
Living just cause it is that we look not
But unto our own destruction we lead ourselves
Noy not by choice my last breath be it taken

Exhale of darkness my soul waits its coming
I grow weary as the days approaches end
A life forgotten, a Dying Breed once stood
A soul once soared, buried in a tomb
Down deep in the ground, the Dying Breed
The last laid to rest eternal

Mismatched Sock Puppets

What do you do with a mismatched sock? Asked my dear.
The puppet squad a laughed when they heard this cheer.
Their googly eyes went round and round, in a wild way.
“We want some new friends by the end of the day!

The dear was not surprised. She remembered now.
The puppet squad included a pig, horse and a cow.
They had each started out as a mismatched sock.
Now the most vocal socks on their block.

Up with puppets! The puppets rule!
The old timers chanted outside the school
The kids came to the window and threw out one sock.
It was the most fun they had ever had on this block.

Thankful For Baseballand Babe Ruth

May we be blessed to acknowledge all the wonders in our life
that have, for us, thus far accrued…
and to begin each day with a word of thanks…
and thoughts of gratitude.

Today I’m thankful for baseball 
and the wisdom of Babe Ruth…
(Many old-timers will remember his name)
He said, ‘never let the fear of striking out
keep you from playing the game.’

Clotheslines

The old timers complain nowadays, 
about how modern technology.
Is stealing away all their secrets and,
selling everyone's privacy.

Information is left up for grabs,
exposed for all of the world to see.
By touching a finger to a glass,
while they are hiding behind the scenes.

As my mother would always tell us, 
“You do not air your dirty laundry.
But back in the day, if I farted,
she would know about it before me.

But I never could quite understand,
how anything could possibly be.
Less private than hanging my holey,
underwear outside for all to see.

If you're thinking that your 5G phone,
might be the fastest thing in the land.
Then you have never met my mother,
with a rotary phone in her hand.

At the Third Stroke

"At the Third Stroke.
It will be four, four, and 40 seconds, precisely."
"At the Third Stroke.
It will be four, four, and 55 seconds, precisely."
Old timers like me can remember
when time was voiced on the telephone when you dialed '1984'.
To get the 'Speaking Clock'!
or were told the time in tolls of local church bells.
or the number of gongs of town hall clocks like 'Big Ben',
chimes on the hour, half or quarter.
When you could ring up on 'me old telephone' at
some ungodly hour in day or night,
and hear the recorded time precisely there and then.
When your grandfather's job
was to chime the time in the hall.
When God told you the time
with church bell gongs and rings.
Can you remember when you lost track of the
time, when you lost track of the count of number
of the chimes or of tolls of bells?
Less important perhaps
at midnight than midday,
but this had you reaching
for the 'Bakelite'
black telephone to
hear the time precisely,
"At the third stroke".
Or you could wait for the 'pips' on the hour,
the six short sounds on the radio,
still going strong after 90 long years.
pip, pip, pip, pip, pip, pip!
There 'tis some ungodly hour precisely!

Oap Hiku

old-timers tea dance-
everyone skip-jives
in slow-motion

Pope Lick Monster of Floyd Kentucky

Legend of goat man of pop lick trestle
prominent in the stories of mountain folk
blue grass anomaly seen by a few
chilling bluegrass spotters who become hypnotized

some local hillbillies affected jump off the trestle
landing a hundred feet below on sharp gravel
terrifying to passengers of oncoming train
he uses voice mimicry to lure many to their deaths

common story in floyd, Kentucky
known by few newcomers or interlopers
shared by old timers in hushed whispers
waitress listens and rolls her eyes at their tale

That Is the Hanging Tree

Old timers in a dark tavern were telling tales
I was the eavesdropper, and none seemed to know
Where exactly is the hanging tree? One asked.
I was horrified, but not enough to quit listening.
An address was given, so I headed out there on foot.

The house was simple, but every light was lit.
Odd for this time of the evening. A crow watched me.
Was he listening to my footsteps? They slapped against the walk.
Looks like rain a grizzled cowboy type said.
I nearly jumped out of my shoes. He laughed.

Gave me a nod and tipped his hat.
I was too shocked to smile.
I had not heard him creep on me.
Silent footsteps; how often do you not hear that?

It was an odd evening; Halloween-like and not Halloween yet.
I turned to say, “I didn’t even hear you!” But he was gone.
I looked in every direction.  “That is the hanging tree,” a man’s voice whispered.
I looked past the house and knew this was the hanging tree.
The crow gave me a sharp-eyed look and flew off.
I felt like he had been an ethereal visitor.

Beautiful Miss Rabbit

The beautiful Miss Rabbit entered the parlor with her usual smile.
We had not enjoyed her presence for many days, quite a little while.
We began shining up our whiskers and sprucing up our rabbit ears.
That she might not pay attention to us was many old-timers’ fears.

She is gorgeous! One old rabbit said, thumping his foot in time.
I could not believe he thought he had a chance. He was full of grime.
She is marvelous, wonderful, pristinely neat, darling and clean.
Why would he think he had a chance with Miss Rabbit, our queen?

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