there used to be a bunch of clover in this meadow
I liked their bulb-like happy leaves
today all I see is scrub grass and giant holes
the holes are courtesy of my puppy
every time he is out here, he tries to dig to the earth’s core
above my head is a large rose-of-sharon-bush
although it will be seventy-nine at four
it is cooler this morning, beginning to feel like autumn
There was a man who at seventy-nine
Thought he was only twenty-nine
When asked his age
He'd go into a rage
Earth spins your birthday I think mine
“It is too late to shut the stable door when the steed is stolen.”
~ From John Heywood’s A Dialogue Containing the Number in Effect of All the Proverbs in the English Tongue (1546)
“When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.”
~ From Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac (1746)
My mission is to go back to eighteen-seventy-nine.
I’ve been authorized to repair history’s design.
Luckily, I’ve been trained on a Woody’s Time Machine,
and granted poetic license, fate to intervene.
I’ve set the dial to Braunau am Inn, near the border
of Bavaria and Austria. I must prevent disorder.
I’ll play with history’s chessboard, move a couple pawns,
and introduce Klara Polzl to a man named Franz.
Franz needed a housekeeper, and Klara fit the bill.
So, until pigs fly, which they never did and never will,
Klara wouldn’t work for Alois. They’d not have a son,
and the world would be spared what their young Adolf had done.
Now that I am seventy- eight
Standing long time_ not
In the spring blowing snot a lot
Wonder what seventy-nine holds
Wonder if I will see the calendar turn
Bring eighty to a fulfilled dream
Wonder if I will have enough steam
Just to get out of bed and make it up
I really don't worry about those things
God cared and brought me into the fold
Even though Satan my life tried to control
Open the calendar and see what it brings
Seventy-nine and counting now:
I’ve got a little streak
continuing to close my rings;
obsession’s not yet peaked.
My wife says that I am possessed
by My Precious new watch,
that I’ve surpassed that Smeagol lad,
taken it up a notch.
But it’s no worse than poetry;
in fact, they’re both a win:
the one keeps dementia at bay,
the other keeps me thin.
Drew a line through us in the sand,
the ocean washed it away;
Our initials remain together.
Zoya sits, now all alone,
just staring through a window pain
to where a pink magnolia blooms
in someone else's garden.
And all her dacha's winter buds
are crushed and tombed in oil and mud
where tank and track has churned
and soldiers on their backs are burned
and seep her garden soil in blood.
Net curtains dim the window pane
but she can count each passing train
seen through the boundary hedge,
and glimpse each combed
and coiffured head
at eight, and half-past nine, and ten,
as Zoya sits upon a bed
and sees them coming home again
at five from Waterloo.
Her curtains flap with icy blasts
damp cushions lie with shards of glass
and where her gentle cats once basked,
dog packs now run her Kyiv street.
Although the hosts are warm, and kind,
Sweet Zoya is now seventy-nine.
Her smile conceals her inner tears,
her loss of ending peaceful years
sat gazing through her bedroom window,
towards her glowing sunflower fields,
her husband still asleep beside her.
Octogenarian
I would love to be an Octogenarian,
Now that I'm seventy-nine.
What joy to be an Octogenarian,
An Octogenarian will suit me just fine.
I would ride a rhinoceros for you
ride it to Timbuctoo
and bring you back
all the golden sand of the desert in a bottle
I would overcome an octopus for you
dive it to deepest Atlantis
gathering up
pearls, sapphires, coral and rubies in a shell
I would bridle the biggest eagle for you
fly it to the cheese-green moon
collecting
shooting stars and sunbeams in a fine feather basket
I would sing a silly song for you, or
write a pretty poem, a nonsensical novel,
a dictionary
of brand new words to describe the lexicon of you
Moving faster than Wonder Woman, I
would go around the world in seventy-nine days
saving a day just for you
(bringing it home, wrapped in spices of the orient)
I would - if you asked me to -
stay up all night for a year, repainting the stars;
leaving them in your room to dry,
just to light up your dreams with silver.
Kim James
7-Feb-2000
Seventh-eight water things
On the wall of a small bathroom
Or seventy-nine. Depends on which count I use.
Some people are overwhelmed.
Not me. I put them all on the walls.
If I take them down I will replace them.
With a giant wrap around mural
I have started it in my mind.
It will be just a tiny part of my legacy.
I like uncommon things done in uncommon way.
Lunaris Jovis
planetae, planetary
moons of Jupiter
as of the past year
of twenty eighteen, there are
seventy-nine known
satellites, whereto,
four of the largest moons were
first discovered by
Galileo back
in sixteen-o-nine, first was
Io, Europa,
Ganymede, lastly,
Callisto, all confirmed by
the following year.
Date: 06/08/2019
*Syllable Counter checked 5-7-5, 5-7-5, 5-7-5, 5-7-5, 5-7-5 = 85 Syllables Total
Possible seventy-nine-degree high today
A day to twirl, and dance and play.
I am saying to everyone I feel sick. We should all be home.
Drawing pictures, planting flowers, writing a poem.
My boss comes in, but sneakily, like a cat. I do not see her coming.
I am in a giddy mood, people are dancing and humming
We have had a rough winter. We are slap-happy now.
We love this weather, the sun-kind that you plow.
It will be eighty-four tomorrow someone else chimes in.
I have an idea; it makes my silly mouth grin.
Let’s all call in sick, I wisely suggest, and very smartly say.
I turn and see my boss’s shocked face, the end of this fun and lively play.
Wrong Expiration Date
Written: by “The Protected One”
7/10/2018
I’ve modified or eliminated habits of late,
Sudden Cardiac Arrest was not endearing.
As I stood at the threshold of Heaven’s gate,
I heard a choir singing and angels cheering.
Then God breathed life into a broken man,
And now I’m surviving on borrowed time.
Seventy nine years has been my life’s span,
At expiration date death’s bell will chime.
In the quiet ebon of morning,
Thoughts arrive as droplets from the sky.
I’ve expended too much of my seventy-nine years,
Waiting on a bus called someday;
Now that the bus has arrived I discover,
I don’t have the price of a ticket,
Indian Blankets don’t populate my meadow,
And my time for planting has passed.
I was in matric, class of seventy nine
With so much to do, I was losing my mind
The year before, my baby brother came
Since then, life was never the same
Thrilled and excited to have him around
We watched him for hours crawling on the ground
Babysitting was an extra chore
Cooking , cleaning and so much more
My parents worked hard to make ends meet
When home, at least they could put up their feet
Studying began some time after ten
When everyone settled, I scribbled with my pen
I could not wait for the year to end
To get a job and lots of money to spend
I went to the shop with only one aim
To buy a newspaper to look for my name
Frantically paging, I searched for a while
A sigh of relief, a chuckle, a smile.
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