POETRY JAM - ON AGING

 So this week's JAM is a well-aged jam.  A little less appetizing than a well-aged wine.  And we are in daunting company:

 "It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me."
                              Alfred Lord Tennyson

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"I grow old… I grow old…
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me."

                           T.S. Eliot

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"When I get older losing my hair,
Many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine?"

                           The Beatles   

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"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

                                         Dylan Thomas

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Okay!  Enough fun quoting favorite old age poems.   Since my poetry style of choice if free verse, my submission will be in a formal rhyme which is outside of my comfort zone.  But then again, at 65 years-old just about everything is outside my comfort zone.  In fact, I'm not sure I can remember what my comfort zone is.  Anyhow - here is my submission for the week:

Sonnet for Methuselah

I do not measure years by counting birthday cakes.

At this point years do not reflect my age.

I measure age by counting pills I take

and names I know upon the obit page.

They say old age is not for faint of heart

unless accompanied by faint of mind.

(Now I can't remember the next part

except I think that it's suppose to rhyme.)

My body sags, the waist line grows

to eat a peach, I still will dare,

but worry now about my bladder flows

and D.C. boobs who cut my Medicare.

Do not go gently into that good night.

At least Viagra keeps one thing a'right.

Okay - that was fun.  Now I'm going back to bed if I can still remember where the bedroom is.


P.S.   While I was putting this together, my subconscious started singing to me again.  Unfortunately, I cannot shake the Billy Joel song, "We didn't light the fire," which I started plagerizing a few weeks ago.  And this week's geezer theme set it off again.  Unable to stop it, the following encore poem fragment came out. You really need to sing it out loud to get the full effect.  I drove my wife out of the house with my rendition.

 

Wellbutrin, Benicar, Zoloft brings me back to par,
Centrum Silver, Synthroid, fish oil in a childproof jar
Metamucil, Lipitor, Advil when the muscle's sore
Where is Jack Kevorkian, I can't take it anymore!

I didn't start the fire
but it's in the tummy and the feeling's crummy
I didn't start the fire
though I didn't start it, I'm too tired to fight it.