"geriatrics" poems
I was watching TV
and the topic on the Geriatrics Show
was Life Support Systems -
you know, about how people are kept
on pipes and machines and tubes and liquid
and I hollered to my wife in the kitchen:
*“Darling, if ever I become life-dependent
on liquids and machines, just get rid of ‘em
and free me…”*
“Sure thing,” my faithful wife said
and she turned off the TV
and my cell phone and my laptop
and she emptied my bottles of wine and whisky
and then she turned to me and she said:
“I just freed you.”
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 7:14 AM UTC
I am quiet in front of the ambient lights.
Confronted among these Ambien nights,
with alluvial life, a hot bed of technical idolatry-
It is hard in the valley of the sun
the people who over-extend
self, carry impotence and
a loaded gun-
The land of geriatrics filled with frolicking snowbirds
who cast out their alcoholic offspring
to grind under gears of the economic machine.
Modern man is genuflecting in the sanctimonious pantheon of self.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 7:22 PM UTC
Can’t wait to be seventy
With knees that hang
Like fleshy skin tags
Over my knee highs
And Custard feet
All squelched into my Clarks.
No prunes
In my grocery basket
Just lots of cheese
Chocolate and beer
Which will make me gassy
So I’ll ask for a backrub
To get my wind up.
I’ll say those things
I’ve always wanted to say
And not come off
Like a social landmine
Because people will just think
I’m batty.
They’ll smile
And nod
And make corkscrew gestures
Behind my back
But I won’t care.
I shall say
**** a lot
Because people
Will not expect that
From a portly granny
With a blue rinse.
But I shall never be unkind
Of all of the ugly words
You can use
**** is probably
The most benign.
I shall read great books
Filled with ideas
And speak to the deaf geriatrics
In the old folks home
And say things like-
So what did you think of that?
And even as they
Clutch their hearts
To prepare for their exit
From this world
I shall say-
I feel that strongly too
And in this way
Everything shall
Be part of my interlude
It shall all be about me
Me
Me
Me
Jan 17, 2010
Jan 17, 2010 at 1:05 PM UTC
What is it really like to be old?
Read along, and you'll be told,
Well, there's spectacles and hearing aids,
Also along the way, by the way,
There's dentures in glasses,
Zimmers on greys who want to make passes,
Then there's incontinence aids, bad hips,
Appointments at medical specialists,
Then you're off to the pharmacists,
To get all your scripts,
Then there's the alphabet song,
Read along, read along,
A is for Arthritis,
B is for Bursitis,
C is for Constipation,
Always a grey consternation,
D is for Diarrhoea,
And no doctor wants to know ya!
Finally, Z is for the big sleep at the end,
No wonder geriatrics go round the bend,
Yes, greys, these are our golden years,
Have fun learning, no need for tears!
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 5:50 PM UTC
So what did happen to old Cocky,
Swearing away, profanity?
We gave him a new abode,
A cage in a nursing home,
Old Cocky struck it lucky,
Full of parrots, like he,
Cocky believed in sharing,
Oldies heard unique caring,
In his inimitable way,
"You fat f...ing c...s, get out of bed!"
Not sure this is what geriatrics meant,
Cocky and Co. abuse the residents,
Yes, Cocky was communicating,
Soon every cocky was proliferating,
Cocky's happy ending! Let's pray,
He is still alive and swearing today!
Aug 10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018 at 7:24 PM UTC
From the age of six to weak bones and homes for geriatrics
We all still wanna **** the same eighteen year old actress
So go home **** off, switch hit and call it practice
And I'll go home and write some rhymes about these ******* fascists
Pray my humble words find wings and fly about the atlas
Play like in my best of dreams when words become the catalyst
To tear apart the great machine 'til the haves have never had less
We'll both wind up with a sticky mess and possibly a bad wrist.
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 3:03 AM UTC
I think the root of the wonder of childhood comes from a
Malleability of perspective.
Radically prismatic shifts that
Expose dry truths through a lens of amazement,
Rightly justified
As a young mind recognizes what
Crystallized geriatrics like me can no longer see:
That the bland fundamentals of the world are truly worthy of awe.
Dec 21, 2013
Dec 21, 2013 at 11:02 PM UTC
these are the days we live by
bemoaned by youth
with ether coated fingers
scoffed at by geriatrics as the
wind their wristwatches
and we in the middle boomers post and pre...
wring the blood from each hour...
looking back, to hard memory
looking forward to retired
ecstasy
we live by these days,
waltzing through.....not
but plodding mostly
some days in ourstep
a skip, a jump, a hop...
each generation eyeing off
the others
and finding lack and want
when needing to step back
step up and take a gentle overview...
and taking up some slack
so the line... from begining
to end don't droop somewhere in the middle
recreating primodial soup
big bang or no.... generation
a to xy and z all gone back
to history.....
these are the days to turn it
around.
these are the days, compassion still can be found
these are the days, my friend
these are the days...
close...so close.. to the (b)end
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 12:12 AM UTC
You can leave on your feet,
or feet first, sweet,
Is that a stir or what?
You look fabulous, male ****
Don't let geriatrics drag you down,
They do get confused in this town,
They can get very boring,
All their scripts rotating,
You can leave on your feet,
Or feet first, sweet!
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 11:26 PM UTC
At the foothills of vintage age
you feel perceptibly less somber
for there are only meager remains
of mostly forgotten days -
little to smile, rue or cry for
and an amorphous
yet obligingly finite future -
trifling to put together or fight for.
So dear Chandra:
here is a congratulation:
It must be awesome -
this imminent privilege of geriatrics
and this stolen bit of transient freedom;
the real laissez-faire to yearn
and to die for.
timorously cajoled
from time’s exacting, puritan dictum.
Dec 28, 2019
Dec 28, 2019 at 8:38 AM UTC
Another Sunday morning
Crouched in the beam of headlights
Steam coming off coffee and breath
Fumbling to pin race bib to pants
A romance
Of sorts; this dance I’m addicted to
Those magic numbers: 5k, 13.1, and
The boss lady: 26.2 (I’m coming after you)
But why? Friends ask
You’re crazy they say on posts
Of me on each early Sunday
I say nothing back, but heart the comment
I can’t explain what the rhythmic pound; the sound
of New Balanced footstrike does
For the broken part of me
How the week’s aggression
That needs suppressing is sweated out
And gathered up in Nike’s moisture-wicking fabric
How weaving through the crowd of neophytes
Wearing today’s race shirt, alternately
Sprinting then walking
And the kids, eager, then over it
The moms reclaiming a body that sheltered
The now-strollered baby
The geriatrics, shoes well-used
Nimble limbs, not brittle but abused
From pounding pavement years before this
This environment, atmosphere
Big race crowds or small informal
Stopwatch race; doesn’t matter
Just involved; a part of this kinship
Unspoken club affiliation; in passing
Not a wave, but nod
A head bob of appreciation
For another’s association;
Obsession with times, miles,
Post-race selfie smiles
Because I know there will come a day
That my body will betray
My runner’s soul.
But for now I stand at the start
Ready for race gun and one more mile
Feb 15, 2019
Feb 15, 2019 at 10:24 AM UTC
The Twilight Zone
In the nearest town and close to all amenities
such as hospitals and funeral parlours my wife
and went to look at an elderly people’s hotel
where people of a certain age get a small flat to
live in, yet it has a café for the social evening with
where young ladies who have gone to university
and studied geriatrics, sing and give the recital of
something suitable not to offend and often
a priest comes around and talks about Jesus.
Sunny Lodge the place was called, and we thanked
the manager we should think about it and was given
brochures to read. Driving home my wife cried, she
has a daughter who is no quite there I have no offspring
we decided to live in our cottage as long as possible
egoistically, I hoped to die before her it would save me
the funeral and sorting out and throwing away my private
collections of bleakly second-grade poetry, blowing in
the dusty wind of forgotten time.
Feb 12, 2016
Feb 12, 2016 at 8:22 AM UTC
Gentrified geriatrics fill the land,
to the brim I might add, and,
'perhaps its time we make a change' I've said,
not happy nor glad
about the situation at hand.
Jan 17, 2024
Jan 17, 2024 at 2:05 PM UTC