True highbrows can't hear commoner's pleas
Stuck sitting on their swanky settees
Status fades as affluence recedes
I'd prefer pink orchids if you please
Elitists applaud wealthy reprise
Fake posers deceive masses with ease
Think that they deserve all that they seize
So send purple orchids if you please
Fools imagine themselves on marquees
Those who would toss it all to the breeze
Who can't see the forest for the trees
Bring me more red red orchids if you please
Cultures erode when no one agrees
Innocence shrinks slowly by degrees
Fairness appears a tawdry tease
I sigh for white orchids if you please
Feel for the needy brought to their knees
My selfish world of ten thousand mes
Flowers fail as empty pleasantries
Making these moments mere niceties
Categories:
settees, humanity, satire, society,
Form: Monorhyme
Standing over the bridge they just didn't care
What things they would throw in the water there
Food wrappers, old settees and even a fridge
Anything really was thrown from that bridge
All that rubbish and waste that they threw
The environment is poorer if only they knew
No consideration given as they chucked it away
Need a stern lecture is what I would say
To them fly tipping is considered one big joke
Like getting drunk every night and passing a toke
Who is to blame for this lack of utmost respect
You will all have an opinion on this I suspect
Categories:
settees, anger,
Form: Rhyme
the aroma of old people pepper air with putrid
perspiration tainting, we sit once again on settees
loosely puckered by pummelled
time like skin hung brittly on bones,
limbs locked on rusted pulleys
prising on old hinges heaving heavy levers.
rites are routinely enacted with drinks
placed on beer mats
old stories retold like fisherman tales
spun from seaward treks Past photographs framed
gallery the white walls of graduations and weddings
Each portrait embossed edged with vellum
a masterpiece of genes some forty five years ago
but present now in the fire sharing their warmth
who else could share the embers beyond years.
You prod the coal fire
like grey ashen coals, relics spring scarlet
as the clock ticks, seeking the best ways
over life's sharpened, rocky paths that would
wound, scarring shins rasping breath as a summit
was viewed clouded
A contest on aging
Emile Pinet
1 June 2019
Categories:
settees, age,
Form: Free verse
During the day
there's a deceptive lull
in the staid common parlor
when the home seems deadly dull
Stale air, disinfectant and potpourri
stirred only by the worried, hurried strides
of harried nurses down hectic halls
stuffy efficiency personified
In contrast to those, the steady repose
of regular residents
dressed up and posed
as odd antique mannequins
in fusty old clothes
like some bizarre storefront
window display
Obsolete, old folks
like aged birds perch
lean and lurch
awkward and angular
nodding and napping
half-waking, flapping
on various arm chairs
Others like basset hounds
lay the room 'round
eyes shut, drooping jowls
intermittent gentle growls
little subtle snores
comfy and carefree
bodies drowsily draped over
the sides of settees
Insensible to sound
and drooling a bit
sweetly sleeping all throughout
like innocent toddlers
with cookie-smeared faces
ingenuous and
all played out
Then eventually, nursing staff
bustles them awake
for activities, dinner
more medicines to take...
Then off to bed
as visitors leave
deluded and deceived
thinking that's all there is
pitiful old people, tragically perceived
Categories:
settees, age, community, crazy, humor,
Form: Free verse