Age—It's All the Rage

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101213

DECISIONS,
DECISIONS

Colon or semi?
I haven’t a clue.
Maybe a dash
or comma will do.

You think prose
is hard? Well, foo!
Just try poems;
they’ll try you.


101212

EARTH DAYS

“What a party;
but look at the hour!”

“Hey, old folks!
Yeah, hey YOU—
what are you
still doing here?”

“Frankly, we
don’t have a clue.
Take it up with
your Higher Power.”


101211

AS IS

Mean. Funny.
Friendly. Sad.

Of people,
little kids
don’t think
should be,
shouldn’t be.
What they
think is—is.


101210

WISDOM AND GRACE

Youth is the time
when life’s blessings are granted—
and taken for granted.

Old age is the time
when (to those who haven’t
already become wise)
life grants its greatest
understanding and blessing—
appreciation.


101209

IMPERMANENCE

Frost and green grass?
That won’t last long!


101208

UNBLEMISHED

Snarl, bite, curse,
do far worse;
my soul knows yours
as lustrous, pure.

The more troublesome
you become
(the more you break the rules,
attempting to break out
of the broken state you’re in),
the more you win
the love I’ve won myself
and now can do no other
than to offer.


101207

CARTOON AVATARS

One friend is a little stinker;
another, a happy cat.
There's a turtle, a top-cat, a martian—
and what-the-sam-heck is THAT?
There's a smiley one, a wiley one,
a minnie and a mighty one.
One's ghostly, one's speedy, one's jolly,
and one is blue, by golly.
There's a loopy one, a boopy one...
and I'm the snoopy artist one.


101206

CHRISTMAS PARADE

Winter dark and winter cold
seek something wondrous to behold:
like this festival of sound and light
that sparkles ‘round the town tonight.

Flatbed trucks transform to floats.
Beauty queens forego their coats.
Boom-boom-BOOM! The band plays loud.
Everyone’s enchanted… proud.
And there are angels in the crowd


101205

BEST FEATURE

Ours is a too-cold,
too-warm house.
It’s fairly open,
so we go barefoot
in the upstairs rooms
and sweatered down below.

One wall consists of windows
a full two stories high.
It only costs some northern cold
to view that northern sky.


101204

"SOCIAL" GROUPS

From surprise to frustration
and, ultimately, prayer;
group interactions
so often take me there.


101203

LOWER-CRUST
REBELLION

Don't call us crass,
or second class,
or dumb.

Don’t press us
under thumb.

We’ve been peons
for eons;
now that’s done.

You say cream floats—
but so does scum.


101130

THEY KNOW NOT
WHAT THEY DO

People
make so many people
miserable,
insisting on making them
happy.


101129

DEATH’S DOOR

Am I completely—
or just partly—mortal?

To my knowledge,
I’ve not yet
crossed that portal.


101128

LATEST TOPIC

Old age this.
Old age that.
What’s the fascination?

Discovery,
at least by me,
that it’s dilation,
not contraction.


101127

FEASTS FOR THE SENSES

Delights! Delights!
Everywhere and every when—
from last song of swan
to first note of wren.

Something’s always brewing.
Something’s always cooking.

Surely you haven’t stopped looking!


101126

IN WINTER COLD

Some written warmth
can be a shawl,
or a filling-in
of a chink in a wall.


101125

JO’S GIRLS (for my sibbles)

Five Little Peppers—
how they grew!

We wanted
to be like them, too;
poor and loving,
curious, bold.

We grew those ways,
and also old.


101124

MY COY MUSE-TRESS

I asked her help, a little.

She asked me a riddle:
What rhymes with "muse?"

"Come on, come on!"
she laughed. "Refuse!"


101123

FINALLY
QUALIFIED

Think about it—
if anybody’s
going to
explore and
write about
old age;
don’t you think
it should be
an old person?


101122

MIRROR MIRAGE

When I press upward
on my cheeks,
my younger face is there;
a toppled doppelgänger.
I must be careful not to stare.


101121

MINOR SHIFT

Once there was
a little girl
who loved to
(not write!) color.

Now she writes,
most every day,
some little thing
or other.


101120

HUMANS BEING

Their thoughts and acts stay bloody,
but reasons why stay muddy.
They fiercely study, but scarcely guess,
the whys of their perniciousness.


101119

RETRACTIONS

I don’t put pomes
on my action list
but very rarely
are they missed,
(except for times
when I’m feeling dull;
then, much I write,
I quickly cull).


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