Then Angel came, his perfect David hung
With testicles, then Rodin, the moderns—
Their strange impressioned visions highly strung—
Then mobiles came to mock tradition, spurn

The stasis weighing sculpture down. Movement
Worked a bit, diverted our attention,
Inserted guile, surely an improvement.
Hands could not include that fourth dimension—

The greatest sculptor, clearly most sublime?
Life’s vicious animator—Passing Time!
(5/24/14)

My ancient plumbing’s doomed to fail,
The oven timer’s broken
(And that part’s not available),
These failures just a token.
The groceries must consciously
Exclude all fats and sugar.
The garden’s filling with debris,
The weeds displaying vigor.
The workplace teems with evil stress,
The picky cats grow bitter,
Refuse their food—strut cheekiness—
While I clean out their litter.

I take a hundred pills each week
I’m not sure why I do it
It’s not a prolonged life I seek
I’ve lived too long, so screw it.
The traffic’s plain unbearable,
And every summer’s hot—
Meanwhile, it’s damned impossible
To park in Costco’s lot.
I’m booked to make two visits soon
With G-I all the topic—
I feel that treatment’s not a boon
And dread what’s colonscopic.

I sometimes fantasize
I’ll find a warm, dark
Hole one bright day,
Slip in and
Just dis-
Appear.
(3/31/14)

When you’re eighty-four, and wake up each day
With a creaky hip and a swollen foot,
With a body stiff, pretty much kaput,
You wonder at the lyrics of decay.
Our famous Bard revealed naiveté
With metaphors for age’s attributes—
Bare boughs, dark night, cold ash—the lyric roots,
The tender images for Death’s sure prey.

Of course, he didn’t take ten pills each day,
And “bare boughs” do not convey the sharp pain
Of arthritic stabs or dread entropy—
Neither “night” nor “ashes” image the weight,
The misery, the baleful strain, the drain
Of prepping for a colonoscopy.
(3/21/14)

Find a woman,
Raise kids.
But work, always work,
Which steals your time,
Controls all thought.

Meanwhile
There’s war,
Always war,
Propelled by greed
Or ordered by
The one true god.

Then, way old,
Retired,
Beyond volunteering,
Unencumbered,
You have the space and time
To figure out what life is all about
Just before you,
Like every other living thing
On this pustular planet,
Doomed,
Die.
(2/27/14)

The weather, unimpressed,
Has been grim gray,
Chilled and rainy
From sunrise on—
Which, of course,
Imposes the usual debit
On these old and weary bones.

Eighty-four is no joke.
Those years a tough,
Silent and unresponsive audience,
While I try,
I really do,
To rejoice
And have some fun,
Exhibit a bit of gratitude
Despite the wind,
And rain,
And the diseased world
All of us
Inhabit.
(2/6/14)

They’ve been there before,
Several times.

Why, I ask myself,
Are they submitting
(First class notwithstanding),
To the anguish
Of international flights—
The searches,
The suspect shoes,
Forbidden fluids,
Interminable hours
Locked in a plane?

In my heart I know
They would prefer
The simple pleasure
Of serene routine:
A movie, a play,
A pleasant dinner out
At that amiable
Nearby restaurant.

In my heart I know
The reason.
They sublimate
Their real desires,
Submit to discomfort,
Painful foreign holidays.

The women they’re attached to
Are too young.
(10/3/13)

We rant about the messy world,
Tell jokes, admire female skin,
Exhibit energy unfurled,
Expressing merriment, chagrin.

Night falls, the energy is spent.
We take to beds and lie awake,
Our aches and pains and old torments,
Plain venomous, entwine like snakes.

The dark is more than literal,
Becomes a metaphor for hope
Drowned in old age, funereal—
Our dreams a blank kaleidoscope.
(9/29/13)

The college girl may groan—that paper’s due.
The Prof may sigh; he has to grade the quiz
By nine o’clock; and businessmen eschew
Their coffee, dreaming bonus-building tricks.

Some wake to days of opportunity
They work and garden, often volunteer—
They revel in each day’s activity;
Spend evenings with hors d’oeuvres and foamy beer.

At eighty-three, back pinched, joints scored with grit,
I wake and moan: “Another day—oh shit!”
(8/5/13)

Two or three unruly souls just ogle
Waiting for their chance, looking to embrace,
They peer with lust, predatory eagles,
And plan to place themselves face to chic face.

The other day one of them sprinted by
Determined to meet Paula, claim his hug;
Not one of those demure hip slants to side—
He forced full pelvic press (poor Paula—ugh!).

Though pleasure gleamed, desire all a-whet,
Deep down he knew that hug was all he’d get.
(6/29/13)

Down at the tennis courts I showed a friend
A morbid poem I wrote last month called “Flame,”
Wherein I cite my own spark’s ashy end—
Burnt out—no light or heat to drive life’s game.

This lady friend (both beautiful and smart)
Took umbrage at my self-demeaning whine.
“Your verses testify! Your verbal art
Provides the power, heat—the force divine

That lights the avenues of humankind,
That warms the passions and ferments the brew—
Intoxicating quaff—unties our binds.
Your hot bright heart’s not dead—it burns anew!”

Wow, I thought—could that possibly be true?
Is that what narcissistic poets do?
(5/23/13)