She’d been depressed at seeing how her parents had aged in just a couple of years. She hadn’t really contemplated time much before, it had seemed an endless resource.

Seeing her lying listlessly in bed, he asked “Are you ok?”
“I’m getting old,” she admitted, closing her eyes to conserve energy.
“You’re turning 20,” he stated dryly, somewhere in the darkness.
“Still,” she said, “You should know that I’ll start wrinkling, any day now, like a deflating balloon.”
“Yeah, I was afraid of that.” He said. She opened her eyes and looked at him soberly.

“You’re almost 27, are you getting crows feet?” He flinched away from her outstretching hand.
“No,” He responded confidently, but he checked his reflection in her dorm room mirror.
“Soon, your libido will flag,” she informed him solemnly, taking his hand for comfort.
He slipped off the bed and gently closed the bedroom door with a casual swipe of his hand.
“You should start eating fiber,” she gasped, “and retirement planning!”

“I’ve got a few good months left..” he said, as he came back to the bed and started unbuttoning the top of her yellow dress, “I might need someone, in the medical field, to keep an eye on me.”
“I could do that,” she smiled, as his button work progressed, “I do need more clinical hours.”

A house that needs a cleaning
Gardens that need tending
Groceries for the larder
And a fence that needs some mending

Grass is nearly one foot high
The dog, he needs a walk
He's gotten just so overweight
But, who am I to talk

Donations to deliver
Things that need be done
A tree to trim a little
But no time to have fun

It takes up all of my spare time
It almost makes me dizzy
I've been retired seven years
And I've never been so busy

someday I will live on a water,
it will love me
I will spend my days discovering it’s mysteries
spinning them into fantastic tales,
cinematic grays of storm,
kaleidoscope colors of dragonfly spring

I will live in the cocoon of its beauty,
in the folding space of beings from every world
I will story the breath of pirouettes,
the creation waves of slumber
finding uncommon lives
woven through fertile riparian fabrics  

the water will know me as no human could
it will absorb me into it’s rhythm
I will disappear from causation
cherished and protected the remainder of my days
I, devoted witness and biographer to a landscape

They say youth is but momentary,
An emotional journey, a fleeting mirage,
Where uncharted waters are a treat not a foil
Tempered only by fates willful barrage.

But as time marches on and life settles in
with a rhythm well known and rehearsed,
A mixture of joy, tedium and tears
To the beat of our life we're soon versed.

The rest is a blur of dates and events
Where memories bloom and then fade,
Countless seasons merge into one
As the years rush by on parade.

Then one day we awake from the stupor that was,
Look in the mirror intrigued yet resigned,
Gazing intently at the reflection so stark
Bewildered at lines so defined.

Yet there's a glimmer of light in our eyes,
A developing smile on lips pursed so long,
Older and weathered well may we be,
But we're finally free if a little less strong.

To those that say youth is an absolute
Once lost never regained,
That notion insidious and barely skin deep,
For we know it’s the mind where youth is ordained.

So let this new chapter blossom and thrive
As we commence our journey anew,
Untethered from work and most burdens of life
We embrace simple joys to our spirit renew.

early retirement                                           2.11.22 Mercury/Pluto conjunction

I’ve been cracking jokes lately,
when in the company of others.
When there was an opening in the conversation
I would insert a comment;
I would joke about my life in early retirement.
I would joke and say that I am retired.
It's obviously funny because I’m only 35;
fairly early in my second Saturn returns.

Over the last 18 months I’ve made modest acquisitions
fit for a retiree;
house slippers, a few extra lines in my face and
even a piccolo pipe with dark cherry Cavendish tobacco.  
They all fit rather nicely,
(according to my eyes)
when worn with my gray cardigan with the red whip stitch
suring up the right pocket;
the same cardigan I wore the night of the accident and the
morning of the ward.
That was an equinox to remember.

Maybe it's in poor taste to joke about early retirement.
Perhaps that it isn’t very funny to go on about,
or maybe it was only funny to me.
It hadn’t quite occurred to me until now that
it may be kind of awkward for a grown man to crack
funnies about his lack of income or industriousness.
I suppose I just gave myself a pass.
Because I figured everyone already knows I’m
a little unhinged-
a little ungrounded-
certainly a bit touched…
and that “he just needs time to heal because he is
an activated Light Worker and the benefits reaped
by his inner struggle to anchor the
Light upon the Earth plane is in everyone’s best interest,
and that it takes an untold exertion of Will to exact such an incarnation,
and that it takes more than a few several months for the
risen Kundalini to come to maturation.
Quick, can someone please get me a tourmaline.

Well, here I am in
southern Jersey
Manchester Township
Ocean County
Riverside retirement community
side of the pond (man made)
composite bench under a gazebo erected on a concrete pad.
Sitting inside my cardigan next to my piccolo pipe and a pen in my hand,
wondering how I could feel so lost and so found at the same time.

I’ve been a stubborn *******.
Afraid to bear my Light within my hands and
expose it to my kin in a meaningful way.
But here I am,
early retirement
on an early afternoon
in a retirement community
full of elders
slinkin through the
early dusk of the
twilight of their lives.
And I don't like it.
I am not equanimous with what is.
I’ve excreted so many toxins that the
re-uptake is nearly too much to bear.
I’ve carried empty green notepads in my back pocket for years.
Pen and pad with scotch tape holding down the binding;
worth about three or four poems max.
“Yea I fancy myself a writer, just not very prolific.”
You can only speak something into being so many times
before the universe starts agreeing with you.
Old man Saturn couldn’t give a **** about
little fears and excuses.
The limits of necessity were only
bad wiring
rendered by
my own hand.
And that goes down smooth like a fish-bone in the throat.

I own enough scarves and robes to
circumambulate the globe a few times.
If only I could fly
it would be in such style
because on the outside I look how I want to feel on the inside.
Before my heart center I hold the dharmachakra mudra and
I stare into a candle flame.
I could of sworn they prescribed this treatment
early in the Rig Veda for guys with ailments like mine;
running mad like beside his shadow and
fleeing all the house flies;
sliding down the side of a waxing crescent moon.

only the moon it is a scythe;
a crescent knife.
Waning in early retirement,
old man Saturn coming for his life.

For single, retired folk like me
Christmas and Bank Holidays are a bind.
Everything is closed,
No buses running,
Friends, like me, are staying home.

No pub for me today.
No squeezing through hordes
Of once a year drinkers
To get to the bar.
I’d rather enjoy my armchair
At home.

But the peace is pleasant,
A nice winter break.
Right now it’s all about
That baby in a manger
Being visited by three wise men.

I have a Christmas Dinner
Ready to microwave
And stocks of beer, whisky
Plus crisps
To keep me going.

Plenty of time to reflect
On another year gone
As seventy looms large for me.
Another year of Coronavirus Variants
As we work our way through
The Greek Alphabet.

Another year of stops and starts
Having to adapt
To whatever monster rears
Its ugly head.

I’ve kept playing table tennis
When the hall’s open
And walked to pub or café
When they’re not closed.
Doing well for a veteran
Can’t complain.

It’s peaceful at Christmas
That’s my refrain.

Paul Butters

© PB 25\12\2021.

Old Anchor

An old anchor rests on a peaceful bay dock
Sixty years he has been aweigh
His iron is rusted from crown to his stock
As he dreams of his shining day

When his metal was young and his arms were strong
And his flukes and palms were grand
He steadied his ship and her souls the day long
As she docked in many a land

He knew many a rode and by cathead was stowed
As his ship traversed ocean and sea
And when mighty gales blowed, he held tight to his load
Making sure she would never break free

But with journeys and age and the turn of the page
Every story must come to an end
And this anchor, though sage, earned his pensioner’s wage
And now dreams on this dock, my friend

© Victor Fuhrman

A retired man returns to work:
he's tired of his freedom.
Watched every show,
Read many books,
The lone-king of his kingdom.

A life of striving, working, waiting,
finally completed.
Now finds it empty,
finds it wasted,
hope has been depleated.

He woke at last before his death,
and let out one last sigh.
Reflections hurt,
Regrets aplenty,
Long past time to die.