NURSERY RHYMES FOR SECOND CHILDHOOD

I’m a little teapot
Short and stout.
Last night I was Moses
Speaking from the Mount.
Increasingly these episodes
Are what I am about.
Don’t tip me over
I’m filled with doubt.

 

OUR TIME
In our time
We gave birth
To replace ourselves

Not really replace….
Well yes,
Replace,
In other shoes.

That gnawing,
That if only,
That, where was wisdom then,
That.

Now we give and give
And give too much,
Hoping
That the enraptured love
They feel around them
Is enough.

To this time
Move forward,
To this time
Climb the upward path with more,
To this time
Put us to rest and go beyond,
To their time.

 

Hickory Dickory Dock
My iPhone is my clock
Now Time is dead
The battery ran down
Hickory Dickory Dock.

 

LOST AND FOUND
One day you will lose your phone,
It should have been surgically attached
But you put it down to pick up the popcorn
And someone spoke to you excitedly
And that was that.
The crowd closed around you,
Until that moment when
You realized it was gone.

And you either took it philosophically,
Counting the brains lost with hyperbole,
Or you panicked, cut and ran back,
Too desperate to even find the sun.

Then inventory,
How much lost,
A human hurricane,
Insurance can’t replace.

Finally freedom.
Freed from its candy grip
To gaze out the window on mountains
That seem to have come out of nowhere.
Were they there yesterday?
Have I been here before?
Do I live?

 

Mrs. Muffet
Had a fat tuffet,
When people commented
She told them to “Stuff it.”
Along came a spider
Decided to ride her
She smashed that arachnid
Like a supercollider.

 

THIS WORD
This WORD
Has meaning.
No THIS one,
THIS.

It means
My pen still has ink left.
It means I was breathing
Long enough to write it.

It means
You’re breathing too
Reading it,
Want it to have meaning,
Want it to add to your life’s experience
No matter how small
Accumulate difference
That adds up to you.

No matter the definition,
No matter the context,
A signpost in a snow storm,
A way out of engaged behavior
And into the interlacing mysteries
Of head and heart.

This Word defines
You. Now.
Because you’re reading it.

 

HOW WE GET OLD I
How we get old
If truth be told
Is something like
Collecting gold.

For every now,
Distinct, sublime,
Withdrawal’s made
Of precious time.

And when the future
We unlock,
It’s meaningless
Without the clock.

So even worsts
We celebrate,
And breathe them in
And toast our fate.

And then determine
So to change,
Whatever we must
Rearrange.

What fardels bear
Is really care,
To tend to more than
Thinning hair.

 

HOW WE GET OLD II
With thinning hair
And laissez faire
And moles,
They pop up everywhere,

Glass-like skin
And next of kin,
Broken falls
And fuck-it-alls,
And don’t forget the
Memory stalls.

Wheelchair ramps
And IV clamps
I told you not to
Call me Gramps!

And while with smiles
A life we fain
We’re really cursing
Chronic pain.

And sometimes walk
When once we ran
And stand aside
And watch the sand.

And make up
Paranoiac fears
From simply trusting
Our deaf ears.

Losing friends
We make amends
Seek pardon
For our selfish ends.

You too can play
This rhyming game
Just grow in age
And then take aim.

 

Wee Willie Winkie
Runs through the town.
Upstairs, downstairs,
In his nightgown.

Is anybody watching him?
Where the hell’s his nurse?
Somebody call 911.
Old age is a curse.

 

TRENCH WARFARE
Do you fight in the trenches
For anything?
Your well-being, your dreams,
Your life?

Old age tells us
You won’t necessarily have tomorrow
To try again.
It is today.
It is now.

And there are only so many Nows left.
Your excuses are crutches
And that’s the last thing you need
At this age.

What you need are mountains,
Students, life projects
Not the glory of acknowledgement
But of daily sweat, daily accomplishment
Don’t wait.
Tomorrow is not just another day.

 

Jack be nimble
Jack be quick
Jack, let’s examine this career path,
Are you going to jump over candlesticks the rest of your life?

In all of human endeavor
This is what you’ve chosen?
Moreover, what about the candlestick?
Does it have any rights in the matter?

 

DEVIL’S
Communion of a special kind,
With nature,
With birds,
With friends,
Comfortable as old shoes.

Younger generations too,
And now we are the elders,
Life changes,
Ambitions tempered,
And still we breathe
The good air,
Share, Converse,
Eat, Sleep
in a natural world
We grow from.
Not one that grows
From us.

 

Diddle, diddle dumpling
My son John’s
Career is selling
Stocks and bonds.
The market’s off,
The market’s on,
Diddle, diddle dumpling
My son John. 

 

GOOD WRITING
Not I,
But written by me.
By me,
I tell you!

I put those words together.
I hypnotized the English language
And in a state it danced
An unaccustomed jig,
So great is my power.

And white paper
Turned to art
As easy as
Seagulls fly.

Or so I believed,
Then read it back,
Chest swelling with pride,
And it stunk.

Like what’s left
on the rocks
After the shells have been dropped
And eaten out.

 

There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe.
Her social security 
Hadn’t come through.
The government told her
It had no more bread.
She whipped them all soundly 
And sent them to bed.

 

END
At the end of the world
We danced. Just
An expression of joy
That we had been alive
Though the world was ending,
That the infinitesimal chance
Of our existence
Had flowered.

And now,
No seeds left,
Just the color
Of God;
Beyond the knowledge
Of our inability
To hold on
To the planet
We loved.