"dotage" poems
Cornwall, Cornwall every day
Bright sun and fresh feelings
Simple pleasures by just being here
Forward thinking into old age dotage
All our lives waiting, hoping, wishing
Never believing it could be
Out of mind with secret longing
Filling up with atmospheric air
Sensing that emotional rush
Deep breaths swallowing cliffs and sea
Wild flowers and cows here
Hedgerows and windblown trees
Lopsided branches pointing inland
As cool salt air combs their twigs
The winding tracks disappear
Love is here all around, so strong
Heart wrenching and stomach churning
Soul and body filling up with Cornish…
Cornish, as long as it’s Cornish
It’s good!
Give us a chance to stay
Give us the chance to live
Ever on the hard granite pathways
Sounds of mewing gulls and thunder of surf
Beating on the windswept rocks and beaches
Cornish light familiar and so bright
Invading our eyes and warming our hearts
Gently massaging our faces with soothing fingers
Lifting our spirits as breaking through the clouds
It charges us with love
Fulfilled and whole
Our lives and minds gratefully feasting
The armfuls of wonder as we carry our hearts
Together, through eternity, watching
As the sun sets in a blaze of Cornish light
Feb 3, 2010
Feb 3, 2010 at 12:28 PM UTC
I want his look
not his favourite Ironman T-shirt
I'm not an Irongirl
I'm not an iron anything sort
I want him creases and all
not his “to infinity” golden band
it has the ring of something too definite
I want him here
“and beyond”
just how far
I'm not yet sure about
not his ultra clean pair
of New Balance sports shoes
I'm not the run around sort
wet trackies pants hot and loose
I want him caught off balance
bare footed on the grass
I want his look
and when he gives it
straight back
into my eyes
I know what...
I'll look away at the skies
and hope beyond hope
he'll interpret my act
ironman out my shyness
ring the changes I want
and run beneath my disguise
to find an orange not a lemon
only trouble is
I think he won't
because at this early stage
we don't have much in common
O ******
he's looking...
the sky's so bright!
like he's going to...
I squint!
blind!
eyes shut!
be just my...
I'm so silly!
.... dotage
huh! maybe I should try...
courage?
a comic character?
hypnotism?
an older age?
Jul 30, 2014
Jul 30, 2014 at 1:12 PM UTC
She comes forth
like waves slipping over
the sand
again and again
delivered from darkness
coveting the light
And light is her signature.
A conundrum.
Light erasing light.
How can this be?
I will tell you.
Light is the companion
of the dark
trips joyfully in its shadows
And this dance
weaves a potent tale
of a two-faced goddess
one face peering intently into the dark
one lit by the morning sun
Yet darkness rules the day
hastens the twilight
gives measure to the
dimming
and finally
captures the last of the light
in a sea green bottle
We are drawn into that night
valiantly
or not
weeping for lost opportunities
or not
but at the end
waltzing into the unknown
Yet I do not suppose
darkness without light
according to my theology
a life that ends in simple extinction
cannot be
it is a null set
The fundamental equations
do not permit it
nor can my simple mind
fathom such depths
So in my dotage
I repair to wine and song
to ease the pain
of these uncertainties
and then to poetry
to catalog the human condition
and leave a trace
that yet might sparkle
in the instant of my demise
Apr 30, 2017
Apr 30, 2017 at 7:30 PM UTC
When the heart stirs
the feet soon follow
or so it is with me
born to be a dancer
Lithe and compact
fearless in motion
a Baryshnikov of the living room
a Nureyev in the night
When my daughter
was new born
seventeen sweet years ago
I would hold her close
dance her through the whole house
sing to her
tell her
I'll love you forever and ever
no matter what
promise her everything
it was in my power to give
Here
in my dotage
my dancing embarrasses her
my rude manners
outrage her at times
No matter
I thrill when
I hear her sing
weep
when I see her onstage
grin like God's fool
when I meet her at
the backstage door.
This tribute
and these poor lines
are humbly offered
by a man who is blessed
a man who wakes up every day
saying thanks
a father proud
a retired musician
(more or less)
whose child
without urging
took up the mantle
and carried it further
than dad ever could.
Jul 4, 2016
Jul 4, 2016 at 3:45 PM UTC
De elevating power might
seem a futile task for a mere
earthling, disadvantaged by
stature, and of course due to
being under surveillance from
an altitude beyond reach, of
even, the imagination.
Such being the predicament
of an elderly Weasel inattentive
to the hidden dangers from an
intemperate predator soaring
directly above, just waiting to
profit from this evident dotage.
Down swooped the winged
carnivore, availing of surprise,
up-draught and velocity, it
quickly sank its talons into the
side of the disabled animal
and rose triumphantly into
the empty sky and high.
But just as possessions fall through
fingers, the winds of change were
about to reverse the tide of misfortune.
The stunned carcass, which only seconds
previously seemed as though was dead
as dead could be, suddenly posed a
problem for its captor (in flight).
Immediately, there was a notable change
of direction and a notable drop in the
flight horizontal, the big bird was visibly
in trouble, the Weasel had sunk its teeth
into the undercarriage, securing itself
from being released of the foot spikes.
The underdog was not going to go down
without a fight and there was nothing,
absolutely nothing The Eagle could do,
no negotiation, no solution other than
land, because The Weasel was not going
to let go and The Eagle was loosing fuel.
Efforts to dislodge The Weasel proved
nugatory, yet, The Weasel was prepared
to **** the Eagle in flight, a pyrrhic victory
is as democratic as one could wish for.
The Eagle had no option, down it came,
flew low along by the tree tops in an effort
to detach itself for The Weasel.
The Weasel availed of the Hobson Choice
and released itself from the breastbone
clambered on to the branches, making
its way out of the tree.
Meanwhile, The Eagle after a huge loss
of blood, left a trail along to forest floor
for The Weasel to follow
Ps.
The leech Eagle ended up in College Road
Sligo where it has a nest.
What became of it, is still unknown, but we
are sure, that The Weasel has not given up.
This is the Fable of Free Travel.
A pass given to the author by
a Government agency in Sligo
Ireland, and taken away with
no explanation.
Apr 29, 2019
Apr 29, 2019 at 9:33 AM UTC
I don’t want to live in a universe where cats are considered liquids— They’re bad enough as they are.
So some idiot decided that cats fit the definition of a liquid—
“a substance that flows freely but is of constant volume”.
Obviously the dictionary is wrong, wrong, WRONG.
I shall spend the rest of my dotage developing a definition that will not accept cats as liquids.
Perhaps “A freely flowing substance of constant volume that doesn’t meow.”— Perhaps not.
But wait, cats don’t fit the definition after all. They don’t stay the same size, especially when frightened or wet.
I bet that idiot spends all his time watching cat videos and has never hosed down fighting cats in his backyard.
Dotage saved for more important stuff :
Continue study of Schrodinger’s aversion to cats, look for hidden messages in Emily Dickenson poems recited backwards, master fake outrage.
Aug 4, 2022
Aug 4, 2022 at 3:58 PM UTC
I gave you serpentine kisses in the morrow,
wore two faces when I confessed my love
but we lay together in the dotage of the day
and you are the only person I can think of.
Dec 26, 2014
Dec 26, 2014 at 10:02 AM UTC
Her mind never at halt,
Eyes glued to the construction paper.
Images and ideas ample her supple eyes,
But none seem to be right.
Ink as fatal as cyanide,
The anglic shade of sapphire blends in its veneer.
From sorrow to dotage,
Each picture was erroneous to her.
Tonight her brain shall sing,
A mollifying lullaby to leisure her troubles.
For as she knows hale,
A vague mural will soon be born.
Mar 8, 2013
Mar 8, 2013 at 10:57 PM UTC
Today, my eyes are drawn to trees whose
leaves are now scouring their knotted roots,
just as podiatrist's fingers search for corns.
Forbidding skeleton branches glance back with knowing,
and our lives’ meaning it seems
are the lives’ meaning of leaves, growing strong and colorful,
getting this and that from the earth, but
impossible to stay for long.
Today, my fists clench. Waves of anxiety as blowing
leaves are gathering, compounding against my person,
just as pedestrians waiting to cross,
forbidding contact but crowding, shoving the curb.
And our ligaments that fail
are the limiters we feel,
getting thinner and thinner, seeing its
impossible to stay for long.
Today, my thoughts continue to dim while
leaves are loosed and blow in the wind,
just as peddlers flee the scene of the scam.
Forbidding dotage, autumn knocks at our door,
and our livid little cries
are the lights we use to cut the shade that’s
getting thicker and thicker, making it
impossible to stay for long.
Feb 16, 2013
Feb 16, 2013 at 2:34 AM UTC
New gods are rising
Up from the mud
At the place where streams of blood
Fed by the violence of ignorance and greed
Flow together at last
Into the great river
New gods are rising
Beautiful and strong
From the sacrifices of the oppressed
The marginalized, ignored, the mocked and reviled
New faces, new races
The mud of the river
New gods are rising
Free of the chains
And fetters of antique gender expectations
Not willing to be defined or bound by anatomy
Only spirit and dreams
Down by the river
Old white gods in dotage
Behind their great walls
Are blinded by their own reflections
In the highly polished arrogance of power and wealth
Unaware of the river
And the mud and the blood
And the battle ahead
Oct 22, 2016
Oct 22, 2016 at 2:36 AM UTC
A pinch of pain, and
you hurl a poem
towards me.
The dilemma of undoing
a kiss of pen,
or lobbing a dagger
in the chest of moon persists.
I will never get the answer.
I would rather go
for a bath in the burning
river of your eyes.
Words do not convey
the real truth. What was behind
the gray dotage on your
withering face?
The voiceless silence would
let you dance on the flames?
O god I am waiting
on the heap of frail bones.
Mar 9, 2019
Mar 9, 2019 at 7:23 PM UTC
Bring to me your broken down
Your rattling and cracked
Send me all your fractured hearts
The pains; the sprains and smarts
Deliver to me your wounded
Your tortured mentally alone
Pass to me your elderly infirm
The babies born before their term
Rush to me your weak of will
Your dependant; addicted and lost
Blow to me those down on their knees
The drunk. Morose. Self-inflicted injuries
Laugh with me at human things
Your odd accidents and stories
Triage with me as I tend the wound
Make you better than the you I found
Present to me your desperate
Your shattered and your morbid
Breathe with me as surgery makes well
Exhale! On my skill your fate befell
Lay on me your one in three
Your canker’d and your wretched
Move to me those at end of time
When curtain falls on final pantomime
Please bear with me when times get hard
When I slip up and make odd mistake
Pray for me at seventy. No dotage; still I strive
So proud to play my part in keeping you alive
Raise thanks with me for visionary
My creator; father Aneurin Bevan
Have patience with me when I seem slow
Many patients to see in daily ebb and flow.
©pofacedpoetry (Billy Reynard-Bowness 2018 – All rights reserved)
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 8:10 AM UTC
When it's late
Don't mess with sticky notions
Don't fool with dangerous spaces
There is no peace in such locations
And time shall have all traces
Of the needed restraint and sobriety
To see us to our dotage
But then
How else are we to grow?
And then again
Who wants a dotage?
Because when it's late
Mocking caverns of reality yawn
And toil tedium and trivia
Are in the eyes of statues
And these cry glass marble tears
Because they cannot move
They cannot leave the ground
Their lowered heads like ageing flowers
Sadly shrunken and dried
With a gluttony of hours
And all love of life long gone
That's when it's late
By Phil Roberts
Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 7:54 AM UTC
The one who should have lived has gone so fast.
The old ones, in their dotage, linger on –
they, with no future, live only in the past.
And we who can but sit, dumb and aghast,
scarcely believe that while the sun still shone
the one who should have lived has gone so fast.
Six decades older, surviving to their last
few days or years, together but alone,
they, with no future, live only in the past.
At least she kept on living to the last,
but should have had a future. She has none.
The one who should have lived has gone so fast,
and they, for whom so many years have passed,
are unaware that one they loved is gone.
They, with no future, live only in the past,
mark time until the final trumpet blast,
and never know the respite they have won.
The one who should have lived has gone so fast.
They, with no future, live only in the past.
Feb 16, 2016
Feb 16, 2016 at 12:36 PM UTC
as the clock of life
ticks away its years advance
unto a dotage
Sep 20, 2020
Sep 20, 2020 at 5:50 AM UTC
Mental absorption tires
As life continually inspires
Info grabbed for added strength
Keeping dotage at arms length.
Thinking thoughts for thinking’s sake
Mind in action as we wake
Reading books, writing words
Digging gardens, watching birds.
Adding grist to our brains mill
To keep on going we’ve the will
Brains reluctant to slow down
Till body’s stuck beneath the ground!!
©Joe Wilson – dum vita est spes est…2015
Apr 28, 2015
Apr 28, 2015 at 6:49 AM UTC
I aged a small number of hours,
none the worse
since posting about Daylight Savings Time,
a radiant playful verse
teasingly succeeded against being terse,
a cogent tangential thread,
where passage of "time"
ranks front and center
this central theme constitutes cultish obsession
with vibrant youthfulness
as if senescence a crime imposed
(at birth) on every purse
son, thus a healthy and prominant grow wing
(nee bursting out all over)
market and cottage industries didst swing
into high gear (make that overdrive)
addressing telomeres shortcomings
justifies tamper ring
with chromosomal genes
to sustain bug eyed sales figures,
asper amazing grace full spy king
scales into the stratosphere,
with cosmetic surgeons *** ping
where, (particularly among
baby boomer generation)
appear younger looking than offspring
(albeit, whereat either gender undergoing
bust ting bosoms and tightening tushies)
to foster said tune, where billions of dollars
come into play, I haint joe king
this feeding frenzy removing without a trace
(of surgeon's needle) unsightly wrinkles,
stretch marks, blemishes, et cetera
(over a life time) fulfilling vanity
in the name of eternal quest to dupe biology
paying mega bucks postponing twilight/ evening
years not yielding to depredations when dotage
a stark reminder what natural aging doth bring
superficial (skin deep) transformations,
which cannot reboot major organs
allowing elderly to rock with van
halen again, since primary maximal apex
i.e. post adolescence/
early adulthood marked urban
boisterous antics, the tacitly accepted behavior,
that would appear down right foolish
as if elders played kick the can
if chronologically old geezers let Mother Nature
rightfully round up steering committee
gently rowing rickety ship of lovely bones
dutifully paying (chump change) to the bargeman.
Mar 10, 2018
Mar 10, 2018 at 8:17 PM UTC
I sit in the room in my easy chair
And ponder my life in the gloom,
The source of my wonder is where did it go,
While racing me on to the tomb,
I thought that forever was all that I had
Before me, when barely a teen,
But now in my dotage I look back upon
The little that lay in-between.
It used to be easy when I was young
And supple and fit, without care,
I didn’t believe it would come so undone
But that was when I was still there.
The aching of muscles and creaking of bones
Were something that old people had,
And I was determined to die, before moans
Would rack me, and make me feel bad.
But life is deceptive, it sneaks up on one,
By not even making a sound,
It pads up behind you before you can look
And then it starts beating you down.
We cling to our dreams and impossible schemes
And hope that our time will come in,
Just as the ship of our fortunes will stream
In to shore, with the laurels we’ll win.
I never got married, or tied myself down
For why should I borrow a book?
With so many women abroad in the town
And each could be had, with a look.
So that was my folly, and that was my creed,
I bedded each one as they came,
I knew no regret as I scattered my seed,
Nor even the feeling of shame.
I heard people mention that love was the thing
But I didn’t know what they meant,
Was love a new sports car, or masses of bling,
I carried that stuff on my belt.
My friendships were shallow, and selfish I know,
I look back, and measure the past,
If my life were a steamer, they’d take it in tow
And fly all my flags at half mast.
There once was a woman, I’ll call her Karrel,
Who worked her way into my heart,
I almost felt things that I never could spell
And soon we had drifted apart.
But her presence had lingered so long in my mind
That I spent my days, just feeling sad,
She said I was empty, and heartless, unkind,
Till I thought I was quite going mad.
So now I sit here, quite alone in my chair
And I ponder on where it went wrong,
The tears on my cheeks tell me life was unfair
That it got the wrong words to my song.
But deep in the dark of my shrivelled old heart
Where Karrel still resides, fancy free,
I look in my shame for somebody to blame
And the answer comes back, it was me!
David Lewis Paget
Feb 3, 2017
Feb 3, 2017 at 8:55 AM UTC
Once one crosses the forbidden line on the wrong side of sixty.
Not to venture further into the next arithmetical digit.
There begins the journey to another world, even where the angels fear to tread.
All on a sudden one comes under uncountable whammies.
A jinxed land you stray into, full of a craggy jagged reef.
Razor sharp rocks you feel at every step and bleed.
Another shell shock I devalued you are as a condemned jalopy.
Looks of all you love, speak a strange lingo: you get a creep.
It is anything but the old warm vibes of those years golden.,
Rather an overdose of pity and compassion over-laid with mushy emotion.
A good enough gesture to an infirm or a ******* or one in dotage.
A man past his prime and relevance like a mast broken of a boat sunken.
Written off the priority roster, stowed in a corner,
Dusted, sprayed and showcased as a piece of curio rare.
mothballed with care in medicine on rationed air.
Lest unseen germs of umpteen infections catch them unaware.
An appendage fit to be dumped in old age home.
A social cure-all, as they say, concerned so unwillingly,
A haven as safe as God’s Elysium for progenitors.
To be lionized as the epitome of pride and wisdom.
So adored they are but shunned cannily by every social connection.
A persona-non-grata in all spheres save for gratuitous complimentary doles.
Being in the jinxed circle of seventy is the sin only committed.
A few blessed ones manage to wiggle into the favoured positions.
A few ministerial ballasts, a lottery coup, or a few sine cure slots, a safety net of power & pelf.
The rest for a wallow in the morass of delusive expectations.
Oodles of stale dry sympathy, deceptive tears and bogus bonhomie.
Old raw sores get abraised-the world turns deaf.
……….
It’s a poetry by late Mr S M Ghosh, my late father
An educationist, history teacher and retired principal of Central Schools, in India.
Nov 2, 2018
Nov 2, 2018 at 8:55 PM UTC
When it's late
Don't mess with sticky notions
Don't fool with dangerous spaces
There is no peace in such locations
And time shall have all traces
Of the needed restraint and sobriety
To see us to our dotage
But then
How else are we to grow?
And then again
Who wants a dotage?
Because when it's late
Mocking caverns of reality yawn
And toil tedium and trivia
Are in the eyes of statues
And these cry glass marble tears
Because they cannot move
They cannot leave the ground
Their lowered heads like ageing flowers
Sadly shrunken and dried
With a gluttony of hours
And all love of life long gone
That's when it's late
By Phil Roberts
Jul 21, 2015
Jul 21, 2015 at 2:14 PM UTC
1.)When imagination became infiltrated by sounds of the nocturnal
—— —— —— —— ——
2.)When negatives sabotage the nocturne to infiltrate imagination
—— —— —— —— ——
Did...
Your wonder ever waver
from reflecting on the wholehearted feature in your possession,
then retreat back into fixed permanence lining every pondering moment with conditions?
If...
Disbelief loomed in your direction,
accompanied by a voice speaking phrases that shock...would you barter?
Over the most rigorous of hand in hand tribulations
Your hand picked heart continued on the loyal
As precursive voices shock that faith
Be open to obtain verbalized through summoned thoughts,
or whisper,
or even murmur such a combination of letters squeezed together
you wouldn’t barter your set mind
For the widest of riches or a trickling scrap of any gossips current scoop
you wouldn’t barter your set mind on
anything open ears didn’t hear
Focused eyes haven’t seen
In order to accept another truth that has no traits of convinces
So much they are willing to pay you a premium of immeasurable value
to reflect on
And waver wonder from wholehearted feature
This is now the lost swamp of fright that begins the next chapter non-being existence vacuum
Sadly there aren’t any shortcuts around this living read
Only the path of lonesome
Unraveling and hurling pelts of disgraced immediacy at your thoughts,
Your appearance,
Your confidence, and trust
running multiple scenarios through chronological process
Trying to spot the precise moment of derailment
internal bitter aggression is crowned result
Because your mind is doubtless
Based on your belly that’s taken confirmation
By your unhesitating heart
Supported by the goddess
you began outlining on canvas
since your ears took in this echoing pain of disbelief
Certifying to the Triplex Elements
That your love runs deeply,
unconditionally,
unnoticed...
The triplex elements throughout our
seeing
being
meaning
(Mind)Restless with doubt and demands believing
(Heart)Personal justice pulsar until dotage rings out with excess
(Stomach) When swallowing ethos emits bubble gutted pathos pay no attention to almost
you wouldn’t barter your mind and open ears
For the widest of riches and a truth accepting order undefined
Nov 16, 2019
Nov 16, 2019 at 2:09 AM UTC
Getting Loonier But Freer
Sitting in the bathtub come prepared:
Pen and pad squared off,
Ready for the spinoff
Boring or imploring
Phrase, theme, word
To make inspired this not tired,
Not yet batty lady
Who, in dotage her,
Is sounding more and more like Lear
(not king – the other one)
Using words in play from fun
To pleasure those with fun-ny bone
Or anyone come close –
With dose of looniness and freedom.
Each thought legitimized – seen through her eyes -
She writes as if the script were scripture,
Thought brought down from god-knows-where,
She, prepared to edit if she must,
Every bit writ down on trust.
The paper pad is soaking wet,
Words dimmed and saturate.
Time to get out of the tub,
Dry hair, the ***
And superficially skin deeply
Watch the evening’s mediocre,
Scary, all too interruptedly TV.
(For TV’s actually for money,
Not for me, or them’s that’s like me.)
Pity!
Getting Loonier But Freer 11.6.2017
A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Bath Book II;
Arlene Corwin
Nov 7, 2017
Nov 7, 2017 at 6:09 AM UTC