Call us perverted,
But read on first,
Then, by the end,
After our verse,
Call us your worst:
***** old men, gutter snipes,
Lecherous gawkers,
Cause we gaze in wonder and awe
At girls from eighteen to ninety-five.
Don't step back and feign aghast,
Whisper covert tsks, and gasp,
What? Oh such ***** old men!
But we are most the same.

We don't ogle or use a scope
Waiting behind a bush at night,
Til the lights go on
Through windows known to be undrawn.

We don't visit public pools
With goggles and a snorkel,
That's just sick, that's not us,
Our admiration's not so twisted,
We grew up to respect the sisters.

We wonder at the parade of beauty,
So pleasing to our eyes,
They dress to allure
Younger looks,
They swagger, tilt and sashay past
With legs as long as trees,
No VPL to interrupt
The curving imagination.
Compare it to one window-shopping,
Admiring wares and worth;
But please, read every line I wrote
Before bellowing, Pervert.

If we were eighteen years again,
We're lads out plowing fields,
Sowing wild grains,
Reaping refrains of They're boys just being boys.

We had our ancient pleasures,
Still comparable to now;
The lushness of the ripened fruit
Hanging on the bough,
Is for younger hands, not ours.

The columned temples of runway models
With flying buttress thighs,
And the bull-frog fronts and volleyball stunts
Please, but we don't pry.

          (We're not a ***** grabbing lot,
          That's not how we usually talk,
          In fact I haven't shared these thoughts,
          I'm reluctant to do so now).

You know you can't blame us
For what a blind man sees;
The cleavage, high-slits and commando style,
The augmentations meant to beguile
Has caught us in crossfire.

The soft unbleached skin,
The ***** and the neck,
The falling, twirling tresses,
Grace the backs of backless dresses.
Wear grotesques to dissuade us,
To disapprove our ageless looks.

Our eyes don't linger on the bust,
We don't display old men's lust,
In fact we're rather obsequious,
To the point where we're air,
You'd not notice that we're there.
But we are, and we look;
And I remember what it took
To be young and on the hunt
For the Yeti, Loch Ness, or alien jump.

Don't tell your friends we're perverted,
Scurrilous id-focused men;
We're neither. We're average fellows
Watching from the stands.

Yes, our daughters are older than
The babes seen on the screens,
But that has naught to do with us,
We still think like eighteen.

We watch re-runs of Mary Tyler Moore,
Drink tepid tea with toast and jam
To the credits of The Golden Girls;
But when the grandkids come to visit,
We take them for ice-cream,
Or if I take poodle to walk,
They pool like thirsty fleas.
It isn't my intent to bait, but I have eyes to see,
Those girls somewhat eighteen,
Like to please by teasing:
     I really like your wire rims.
Their eyes grip, the wind flips,
Their hands soft and supple...
I'm at a loss-
What's a man to do-
Between forty and forever?

This reaper's aged,
The harvest's in.
The grain that bowed the straw
Has now been threshed,
And milled to flour.
Add heat to rise again.

When I was a child, I was told to be good,
We were never the most amazing children forward from conception.
We tried to please. Compliments were scarce, but not unnoticed.

In my disengaging years, I was clever enough in school to pass (all but one or two usually did). I'm into life-long learning. I didn't get to grade two because I was seven.

It was never suggested that I might be the smartest, most prodigious brain in school, any school in any district in North America. No one framed my finger paintings and straw art.

I was okay in sports. Most sports. Never got a Participants' Ribbon. Make the team or get cut. Pass the ball or get benched. My parents never knew the coach's name, usually didn't know where the game was played. Do something else. Practice. Oh, and the medals, trophies and team pictures are lots of fun.
And, you will handle them every so often, and remember...

Later, I found out I wasn't ugly. I've my share of blemishes, but there are plenty of kisses and dates out there to go around. Trust me.
I wasn't described as David, recently stepped off his dais, or, the heartbreak of thousands, the man you want to be in the mirror. Actually, we all look much like yourself... the same.

No one told us to be clever with money. That, if it existed, belonged to my parents. I didn't get any. I did take out some garbage cans for two old girls on Tuesdays, for fifteen cents. Ask Boomers about their jobs. There's lots of stories about earning money.

We belonged to the Age of Entitlement. Grew and matured expecting a good education, a fair wage for a fair job, a planet to live on with some intermitent world peace.
You are entitled to the same, Dear Millenials.
The same way. It works wonders.
And don't tell anyone (especially your kids) they're ******* Royalty.
We know how Majesty ends.

For all you've done and said,
The care and understanding,
All the unsaid and undone
Makes my response sound trite.
I could paste wings on your photos,
Create an award in your name,
Establish a child sweatshop,
Radicalize the altar boys,
Trade up to a ******'s rifle,
Join a Cartel,
Put granulated sugar in your tea,
Vote Conservative,
And even then,
After the fire,
I'd be at a loss for words.

I'm taunted by another,
Allured by the attention,
Polishing vanity to a reflective glaze,
Like a winner's cup, held up by the ears,
To display, kiss, and smudge,
Then returned to the rightful owner.
It's an enviable snare,
One may think is sincere,
From here, looking over there.

I really don't like the idea of growing old.
Don't patronize me with the alternative.
You know squat about that.
There's the smell of bleach and ****,
And the lingering odor of soiling
Up and down the corridor.
There's the swish of mops,
And night comes early.
You say you'll visit, but when? You're busy with life.
I won't be seen at gatherings,
Perhaps a visitation for old friends.
The world should spin counter-clockwise
Before expelling me in its daily gyration.
I want a giant to hold me again,
And tell me I'm a good boy for eating,
For crapping in the toilet.
Soon enough, but you don't dare say so aloud.

The local storm warning finds me on the porch,
Out the back, observing the strength of wind,
The swag of trees.
The eye of the storm is passing overhead,
And the lightening blinks wistfully,
As a gesture to take cover
Before the rain and hail fire down,
All over town, windows open,
Curtains drawn, lights on early.
I persevere, but my dry season is coming to an end.
I remembered the storms in Kilarney,
Looking out from *Butler's Snug.

I'm told the sky is blue.
God is dead.
Lead is heavier than cotton.
I'm not convinced I know where the sky starts.
You need proof, like a birth certificate, to be declared dead.
Cotton and lead can both weigh a gram or a tonne.
So, my conundrum... how do I write about what I know.
My name is Francie. I have a birth certificate, and it's yellowing...fast.
Whatever comes after this is pure speculation.
However, our opinions are weighed
With equations and laws. Laws.
There's a thumb on the scales.
Reason is subjective. Water is wet... warm... hard... vaporous... dry...
I can write about death, while I'm alive, believing in it.
My forehead is bleeding from pounding my lack of truths into verse
For readers to think of the possible, for certain.