Oh I don't like this
This isn't right
It's another country
Everything's one long fight

It's like a foreign language
Nothing's the same
It's all gone wrong
Tell me her name again

I just wish it was like it was
I just can't keep track
Oh don't get old Steve
It never comes back

You won't leave me will you...

Things my mum asked for today:
To be taken home
Toast
The toilet
To be left to die

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.

Her thoughts became a jumble, her memory tangled
Oh how easily our fragile mind can get mangled
She used to sing and strum a guitar, while I twirled
Now she moans and cries, frightened of this world
She told me, "My computer don't work good, no more"
I hadn't an idea a battle with dementia she was in for
Her laugh was so boisterous, and her mood often jolly
Now she lies in bed wailing, the last leg of this life folly
She told me stories of a poor farm girl in a land far away
I listened intently, but my thoughts have begun to betray
The memories in this life she shaped have since faded
Of the ones she shared, few remain, forgetfulness invaded
Sometimes a loved one remembers and shares a story
How wonderful to have a new moment of her in her glory
As time goes by and she slips further into murkiness
Our family must gather muster and sturdiness
My mother whom to me is so dear is an empty shell
Sadly, she is so far from herself, on this I often dwell
There is a day still to come, and she will be whole again
My mother at her loveliest with God up in heaven

On the shore he perches daily,
body wrecked and curled.
Through his hand
there streams some sand,
drawn down unto the world.

As twilight sinks, he gives a wistful
glance toward the sky,
as tales and tears
of eighty years
still now adorn his eye.

Soon he picks himself on up, and
shuffles west, forlorn,
and no one knows
quite where he goes -
he's always back by morn.

He's seen a lot and lived his years
defined by time's demands,
and with regret,
like sand, he's let
his life slip through his hands.

So on the shore he perches daily,
fingers fixed, unfurled,
and for his bruises,
slowly loses,
bit-by-bit, his world.

Why shatter the window when my door is wide open?
Why shout with frustration when I'm standing right here?
Why plead so loudly when you have my attention?
Why slap me so hard when I'm wiping your tears?

I see you're so lost, I see you're so lonely
I feel your hot anger, I feel your deep fears
Whatever you do, even when you disown me
I'll sit here beside you, until the fog clears

I miss my mother most
when I'm in her frenetic company.
Such an angry fragile woman
in the shadow of the mum
she used to be.
Lost and alone, wanting a way home,
one woman against the world
with no old friends
only fresh new foes.

She can identify every shifting lie
sitting scared with no escape
from a hundred shifty eyes.
Stalkers criticise every mistake
watching her practice looping moves
cornering her as if to prove
that we're all conspiring
each trying to rob her
when the screaming truth here
is that her fleeting thoughts
have already gone where
we can never walk
not even in our tears.

What's the problem?
Root out psychic weakness for clarity.
Get a clue. Find fear with his pants pulled down.
Grease him up. Marvel at the grasp you have
When it is your grasp is cast. Take control.
Write it out. Of a pen, venom dipped, or on LCD.
Create targets. Release your load. Watch what
You thought killed you explode. Say your prayer.
Kiss dementia on the cheek. Find your tools
To craft relief, send your sinking self to sea
Sit on the water, in twilight above and far gone.
Wait for that bony fingered knock again,
That **** is infinitely recurrent.

I vowed to listen to all you speak of
Even amongst the hostile cold and unforgiving bleak
I stare into a face once full of love
That once made me weak

But now a stranger- l struggle with time  
Imagining you true to your once pretty sight
No longer mine, it has consumed your mind
No longer do you know my plight

How I wish you would come back to me
I can feel your body next to mine but it's not you
It is merely a shell of the person I once knew to be
So full of life, generous, caring and eyes so blue

Eyes now black cavernous caves
Empty and dark like pools of water
Reflecting life but never generating waves
Stagnant, festering, this is not fair

You have truly lost your mind and your soul
A shadow of what once was there
Ever taunting me with the memories it stole
Meaning you don't recognise me in your stare

Nothing will ever hurt me more than that
A lifetime torn apart by degradation and age
But you now are lost to me, yet cruelly in your seat you're sat
Your love for me lost: signifies the final stage

                                                                             -k.g.

Predicament of the zero hour
enabling brave or foolish decision
Even  mélange of both
Hitting home
physical structures oppose
Unfleshly
Holy Ghost takes over,
very much also  
Divinity and arousal

Only human
perched on brink of flight
dwelling is no perception
of freedom
Apprehending bigger picture
"To judge is not to love"
or something Mother Teresa said

When Pops referred to "The Bible"
it meant, bring him the sports page
Dichotomous our separate ways
revealing conscious decisions
Tridented a third eye  
When a vision of something further
sends to sentiment beyond
Cast and flung
Stealing home plate
and called, "Safe"
Pondering what only a god
may leverage