"wryly" poems
A wicked woman told my love, **** him and you will be free."
My love paused, and the wicked woman's old twig of a finger pointed off to me.
Love walked to me with tearful eyes, as if she had no choice.
I smiled wryly and told her in the softness of my voice, "Let it be done, and be free.
No sword is long enough to show my love for thee. No dagger, short enough to match my heart's beat.
So please my love, take your choice of my death. Choose what would be fit."
She didn't hesitate, just cry. She, slowly lifting a mirror from the dust.
I don't know why I felt I must, but I wiped the tears away just to savor her touch.
I looked into her sad blue eyes, just for one more glance. Then I shut my own.
I could feel her lift the mirror, this was her chance, let it be known.
A crashing blankness came down on me, soon after the last things I heard.
"I'm moving up, and you're moving down." These were her last words.
I didn't understand them then, but now I think I know.
She will one day be in the warm light, while I'm still stuck in the cold indigo.
I'd always run up the down escalator, like a crazy kid.
She always said, one day I'd trip.
And now I finally did.
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 6:31 AM UTC
A puddle of existence
Awake in bed alone
I turn and turn and try to relax
Wryly acknowledging to myself
Trying is not relaxing
So I dive headlong
Into our deepest waters
And I hear your voice
And I know everything will be alright
And you aren't always going to be so far away...
And you are sharing my pulse
And you are breathing with my breath
And my eyes can see with yours
Holding you close
Hoping for soon
Our now
Together
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 2:27 PM UTC
the lanky mortician with wryly looking fingers, oh the poor boy.
The hospital asked me how the body should be cast.
Such a funny thought to wrap you up in white linens,
your favorite colour.
Before I say goodbye my dear Eugene,
"Do you find it all right, my dragonfly?"
I can hear you asking, "James why do you cry?,
Make the most of your life, while it is rife;
While it is light."
Before I watch your flesh go,
Shall we look at the moon, one last try?
Sep 14, 2015
Sep 14, 2015 at 7:41 PM UTC
The iron in my blood has grown too heavy
The only sensation
I have
is anxiety:
the about-to-jump uneasiness of limb
without the adrenaline.
The lump in your throat
almost heartburn like heart ache
but aches have faded to numbness.
I'm dumb.
And founded on this quiet existence
of waiting for the next hill to climb.
Wryly smiling
at the slightest hint of a plateau
and shattering its mirage.
A barrage is barring the beatings of a heart
that I've often questioned existentially
in nights as dark as my thoughts
and equally as empty.
Every relief
stands in cold contrast
to all my other anxieties-
building up their mounds
to amounts unspeakable
in the crowded, concentrated ball
which has made it's way to my throat.
It's heavy.
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 4:57 PM UTC
There's a Route 22 near you.
A licorice asphalt road,
Twisting as opposing currents of time,
With anticipation and apprehension,
From home, to unknowns,
From comfort to expectations.
A rural ribbon of signage,
And milestones.
I traveled mine yesterday,
In an overdue Spring,
From Melrose to Bright's Grove.
I writhe and bend with its winding,
Former times arise like heat waves;
Mirage puddles flood my head,
Always just out of reach.
I recalled hitchhiking through Warwick,
As I backtrack,
And almost stop
For one today on the curve
Where they sell the garden gnomes.
I once looked wryly at them
When waiting across the road.
Sprawling upright over the northern landscape,
Towards the Co-ops of Arkona,
And the beer store in Thedford,
Wind farms thrive like techno giants,
In a mutant Utopian world.
****** Mary's red sign no longer hangs
Outside the white house in Lobo,
Where she could bring you in touch
With your dead.
Poplar Hill's trees no longer snow in the summer,
The water wheels are seized, barns are exposed.
The lofts collapsed.
I had to stop near a culvert, to listen to the sound of run-off,
The melt reflecting the transition under the sun,
Converging at Black Creek, Pulse Creek, or Cow Creek,
Carrying forward to the St. Clair River and Lake Huron,
Then onward and back.
Weathered iron fences enclose pioneer graves;
Settlers who cleared the dense Lambton forests,
And made the first ruts along my way,
With wagonfuls of backache.
I know well how you fared on our Route.
Mar 24, 2018
Mar 24, 2018 at 9:48 AM UTC
(a story in trochaic tetrameter)
Even a Prince must bend his knee
to the lass who has won his heart.
“Please be my bride, stay by my side
forever - tell me we shall wed.”
“My love and affections are yours,
they have never been better fed
- you are surely pleasures master,
with your rough hands and softer lips.”
“Then let us petition the clerk,
we can be wed in a fortnight!”
Sometimes love takes dismaying turns.
There are standards, some are double.
The future princess must be chaste.
The clerk asked, “Are you a ******
“Do you seek to entrap us, sir?”
The prince asked, his hand to dagger.
“We cannot hoodwink the law, sir.
It must be asked and answered.”
And so the clerk asked it again,
“Would you swear on your honor miss?”
“If I had a virgins honor,”
the possible, future princess said.
The high clerk sighed and sheathed his pen.
“Most honest and least virtuous
lady, the marriage cannot be.”
“So, then the law is strictly tied
to something lost in love’s first blush?”
she asked, with no show of dismay.
“My actions follow the law, miss.”
If the clerk sounded bored, he was.
The prince, however, was outraged.
and on the verge of a salvo.
The clerk feared a soliloquy.
To stall the coming storm, the clerk
said, “I believe you KNOW the King?”
“He’s my father!” The prince revealed,
to no one’s shock or great surprise.
“The King, the law - the law, the King?”
The clerk's finger turned like a wheel.
Somewhere deep in princes mind
a dim bulb lit. “To the Castle!”
The clerk smiled wryly at the lass,
who shrugged back. Love would find a way.
Jul 16, 2023
Jul 16, 2023 at 10:03 AM UTC
People are nature's biggest curiosity.
Naturally, I observe them every chance I get.
The last time I was here, it was no different.
My fascination rested with the girl to my left.
She was obsessed with the guitarist,
claiming that he was "amazing" and "the man of her dreams."
She fantasized about dating him.
She wondered what it would be like to know that she inspired the songs
or to meet him backstage for a familiar kiss,
rather than an awkward handshake.
I smirked at her musings wryly,
long since having given up any notions of romance,
let alone with a shining star.
How funny the tricks fate plays on us.
As I watch you sing on stage, the spotlight bright,
and listen to words meant only for me,
and await that backstage kiss,
I can't help but glance at the girl to my left.
She's not as starstruck as I remember;
She doesn't know everything about you.
She doesn't even know your name.
I wonder why.
You're the brightest star I know.
Everyone should love you and know your name.
A scoff brings me back to reality; I look to my right.
I know that sneer. I wore it once myself.
To this girl, I'm just another girl to her left,
but I can't help my spreading grin.
Perhaps I am the girl to the left,
but you love me, and so my world's all right.
Jun 25, 2016
Jun 25, 2016 at 10:54 PM UTC
We roll
on the magic carpet into the outward reaches
to wrap abound bodies in communal hugs
atop magical tye-dye mountains and black and white rivers
of Peter Max the hushed whisper of
red bird hair ***** into a conversation
flying further into the horizon that is my dawn light glowing chest.
We roll
over each other on the floor sofa laughing,
like you see in the movies
of delinquent bohemians celebrating life with beers and
pills you swallow. Feels like the puppet strings
on our wings have withered; free to flail.
We roll
our bodies & eyes
backward-forward-sideways together with the music
wryly dancing as the world turns into a desert--
every molecule in our bodies warms--slowly,
like a hot bubble bath,
the earth takes its time spinning....
unlike our Sufi brains still rolling
rolling
and rolling like a stone down a hill betwixt a meadow
between two excited lovers in a cliched scene where
they are running toward each other--
naked with tattoos on their arms
and a smattering of neon orange and blue paint speckling their bodies
while they wear a native american headdress and Ray-Bans.
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 11:05 PM UTC
"Let me teach you
What you won't know.
Let me show you
What you won't ever see."
Said the Bird to the Beetle
"Let me bring you
A piece of the Sky"
The Beetle smiled politely
And pondered so, then asked
"Would you let me
Let me teach you
What I know?
Let me show you
What I see?
Kindly would you
Let me give you
A piece of the Earth?"
The Bird only snickered
Coldly he answered
"Why would I want the Earth
When I can have the Sky?
What value is dirt to flight?"
"Without the Earth, my friend,"
The Beetle said wryly
"You forget, we'd all
Live on valueless flight."
Oct 15, 2011
Oct 15, 2011 at 8:49 PM UTC
Wry is one of many things you do well....
~~~~~~
dedicated to, inspired by Paul Anthony Hutchinson, who wrote those words to me but two hours ago
*Wry
- produced by a distortion or lopsidedness of the ****** features: a wry grin.
- abnormally bent or turned to one side; twisted; crooked: a wry mouth.
- devious in course or purpose; misdirected.
- contrary; perverse.
- distorted or perverted, as in meaning.
- bitterly or disdainfully ironic or amusing: a wry remark.*
It is bitter,
It is amusing,
the distorting that gives a shape and thereby
meaning
to a misdirected life,
the ****** muscles perused,
all reversed, all per-versed
t'is not just the smile that is loopy,
or simplistically turned upside down,
twisted but not dubious, nor devious,
twisted but straight, I say,
wry is not a seething something I do well,
wry is in every nuclei I ever split,
every line etch-a-sketched in every poem
worn down,
physically inscribed on my face.
so much to reveal,
but not here not now not,
ever on and ever in, explicit
but blurred, burred, and buried
within them is the ironic of a man
that laughed through the better part of his life,
for in that period, there was no
better,
just worse
I was born wry.
the last of three, I was nameless till I was twenty one,
they called me just
brother, or the brother.
at twenty five, I married the wrong woman,
though we both wanted not too,
thirty five years of wry, the lawyers rejoiced,
the judges celebrated, the poets went mad,
swear it true,
the family counselors said
beyond hopeless,
and with wry smiles at the spectacle of years wasted,
spent like there was no tomorrow,
for there was none
in the titanic disaster of more, new lives corrupted
I lived life wry.
now, in the final fourth quaternary,
see how he,
the master of the unceremonious,
in on bent knee, hands clasped, on bed, rested,
when he seeks comfort and guidance for the upcoming
finality following a two minute warning,
warning that even now,
the future wry, turned to one side, when all he wanted,
was to live quiet in the straight and narrow
and not write poems asking himself with trepidation,
from where will come the courage to make this
last passage....
oh yes, I do wry so well,
and all things that wryhme with hell,
you will be spared,
for wryly he exclaims
"Enough, enough"
wry why!
for in all the days of his disheveled life,
there have been but a few,
when it has been simply,
enough
Feb 4, 2014
Feb 4, 2014 at 11:05 PM UTC
tired of my drooping Hanes,
my slept-in choice for greeting
a new morning tad overexposed,
my weekend breakfast table
body's accoutrement,
"coverup" she deemed accurately
as in-suffice,
my nighttime slept-in choice for
welcoming the new morning
as a single continuum,
exposing my true colors,
thus declaring biblically,
"Let there be night, let there be day,"
in a manner of speak
she-woman wryly declares
over her slim sizing
yogurt Greek and half of a laugh
of a banana downsized,
"You need some loungewear"
pondering this ponderosa-sized ponderosity,
grasping its monstrosity insulting me,
coffee pouring, Eye, a
first responder
contemplate irresponsibly,
thinking to reply with bravado,
that on said day,
when Eye accrete
such a class of clothing
so nomenclatured as
"loungewear"
upon my person,
or in my ward-so-unrobed found,
unasked for,
Eye will require transgendering
but my tongue bites me,
so instead
draw down on my John Donne,
on the subject of
food, good taste
and being unclothed,
and instead
He-poet
bequeath the she-woman
this riposte...
*"Full nakedness!
All joys are due to thee;
as souls unbodied,
bodies unclothed must be
to taste whole joys.*
wisely retreating than be
defeating,
not wanting
a world war conflicting,
with coffee mugged, Eye return/hide,
under the bed's blanketing comforter,
thinking of the taste of whole joys
of her body unclothed,
when later, she creeps in next to me,
to practice the serious art of
lounging...
Apr 18, 2015
Apr 18, 2015 at 9:30 AM UTC
The New year 2013, in trepidation slips faintly;
head-long in India while it bleeds shockingly. .
The patient Sea awaits its souls rained rudely.
while somebody blocks their brooks brutally.
Poor parents awaits nurses as patients patiently
for nurses to nurse ere their pulse falls abruptly.
For thirteen days we forgot the feudal FDI fully
Our M.Ps’ empathy poured in media profusely.
“Thirteen” an accursed number mourns lowly
holding high the news of **** or hope crudely
News of corruptions and the corrupted partly
merge or submerge in clamour in vain freely.
The reckless leads a life carefree fearlessly
And they glide in politics scot-free wryly
Pharaohs wield the power to save and to ****
Challenging God’s sole unique authority, still.
The twinkling starry eyes, of my darling, fill
In me Calm Nature’s emerald hope and Will.
Dec 31, 2012
Dec 31, 2012 at 4:52 AM UTC
Now, you look at me
and spot my arm
across the kitchen table,
and instead
you look
you see
those older lines in blazing white.
These sentiments they mark mean more to you
than the lines around my eyes,
from a brow furrowed in frustration for twenty years.
Or, the mottled lines across my thighs
from where my body grew to fit my mind.
Why does my upper arm reflect my general attitude to life?
Any more than the lines around my mouth
from fits of laughter flying out,
or in my careworn hands
seen grasping tight to other hands
so much that there are lines.
And even though as children we write lines at school
until we cannot help but see that
"repetition will leave a mark".
And even though in every day
we all suffer - loss, grief and pain
in equal measure to our
joy, relief and gain
...you cannot see a line for what it is
a telltale sign of that desperate condition
known as life.
And after all the lines we draw
define us in relation to everything else
and the lines I drew upon myself defined me in relation
to the pain I felt not
as the pain I felt.
And if you look at me now
am I not a specimen of perfect health?
So why do you draw lines on me
that arrow point to labels
because my wounds take on this milky hue,
where yours were clear tinged salt tracks from your eyes
that filled a swollen belly, bony thigh or toned physique.
And all results of hollowness significant as mine.
And tell me,
what crime do I stand accused of but for feeling
with the true extent of who I am -
and leaving marks to show that I
am not afraid to feel tender
cry out,
sob gently,
and even
when I'm pushed too far
get ******* angry.
And are you telling me you don't know what I mean?
That across your body, mind - there are not lines you drew
in reaction to people, places, circumstance you knew.
And if not then may I suggest
you get in line
for a new mind
and a brand new pair of eyes
...before you wryly look across
the table at my upper arm
and ask me where I got my scars.
Oct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 at 10:48 AM UTC
When people asked
my dear friend,
early in her widowhood,
"How are you doing?"
she would wryly reply
"Waiting to die... and you?"
After all these years alone,
I am not asked that question
anymore, in the same way--
The assumption being
that my grief is a thing of the past.
Most people, I have noticed
Just want to talk about themselves, anyway.
But if asked, I might just say
(with relish at their astonished look),
"Waiting to die... and you?"
Eileen Auger
7/28/14
Jul 28, 2014
Jul 28, 2014 at 3:04 PM UTC
It’s a slow slide to somewhere else...
He shuffles, stumbles stammers and he sleeps.
He knows I am his brother.
I help him go for a wee in a bowl,
we’re standing by the commode.
He shuffles back to his comfy chair
but only with my help.
“Are you my brother?”
“I am,” I say.
Six years is a biggish gap between siblings.
‘Our Brian’ tolerated me...
”Take Chris to the pictures”...
”Aw Mum, I’m 18... he’s only 12!!!”
He headed on out with his mates, smirking,
waving a ciggie and a beer.
But, when he needed a whizzo batsman for his cricket team,
who knew?
I was strangely unavailable...
But, I capitulated and said “OK I’ll play for you!” We won!
At 81 he shuffles, he stammers, stumbles and he sleeps.
He employed 300 people in factories overseas,
spoke with authority, negotiating with emperors -
always with total ease.
Today he talks in whispers, his larynx squeaks;
clatters like a broken pipe, every time he speaks...
He shuffles, he stammers, stumbles and he sleeps
...for most of every day.
“
I am your brother aren’t I?”
“You certainly are”, I say.
He was the head of magistrates handing down the law...
I joked... I called him ‘hang ‘em high Bri’,
him judging slightly to the right of Atilla the ***
I remind him of his past... and we smile ...
(because of course it wasn’t true)....
The last thing to die will be his sense of fun.
He shuffles, stammers, stumbles and he sleeps.
He played prop forward for Moseley’s first fifteen,
maybe his problems started way back when...
too many head clashes, line outs, scrum downs...
That’s the last thing you’d think about back then.
But there’s long term damage you might do...by just ‘being’.
He stumbles, stammers, shuffles,
dummies
and scores in his dreams...as he sleeps.
He even went to garden parties at the Queen’s Equery’s behest
as well as, whilst in India, often - he’d be a Maharajah’s guest.
And, when you mention it, he just smiles wryly
and stares, with rictus grin. He IS in there!
But that’s the trouble though... sometimes he IS locked IN!
He stumbles, stammers, shuffles, smiles -
and he does love to rest.
But sometimes he will rally with a string of memories
all lucid and true... and, if there’s food involved
well, he’ll be at the table way ahead of you.
That’s the quick shuffle!
He makes good progress
through all his favourite stuff,
Then he’ll lie in his reclining chair
and enjoy that customary nap
You watch him closely - making sure he’s still breathing
- thank heavens for that!
He stumbles, wheezes when he talks -
and shuffles when he walks...
He shuffles, stumbles...then he sleeps!
“You are my brother aren’t you?”
“You know I am - for keeps!
Love you Bri!”
Jul 7, 2024
Jul 7, 2024 at 3:22 AM UTC
As it sank in the daughter,
She dug up a thing from deep inside.
“if I may ask you dear mother,
something you’ve always tried to hide.
why father moved away from you
why couldn’t you two together stay
did he make it too difficult for you
or was it just the other way?”
she wetted her throat once more
wryly looked her daughter in the eye
“would you please fill another pour,
to make sure I don’t lie?
I thought I loved him, my summer’s first rain,
My burning heart’s balm, among all other men
Madly I went for him, good at love that he was,
You can call it infatuation, a woman’s first crush,
As long as the storm raged, the fire had me ablaze,
I rode like a horseman in that blinding rain’s daze,
But once it passed and I woke up to real life
We were no more lovers but just husband and wife.
You would know it daughter, it’s only an instance
Before the passions dry up, evaporates the romance,
Under their layers I found him just another guy,
I couldn’t live for him nor for him could I die”.
The daughter fell silent not knowing what to say
She hasn’t seen her father who she dreams to this day
The mother poured herself another in the dimming light
The daughter saw herself receding into a darkly strange night.
Jun 3, 2013
Jun 3, 2013 at 7:44 AM UTC
Pale blue
baleful too
Mourning
morning
and the day begins
grins at me from behind the sky
slyly
wryly
I arise
wash the sleep
and my eyes
blue
sorrowful too
and I grin from behind the mask
all I ask is all there
glaring at times
and at times
daring me to break away
the day reins me in
from behind the sky comes another grin
a guffaw
and then more than my ears care to hear.
Fear the day
fear the way it captures the heart and wants you to live
carry a shiv
stab at it
grab at its glory
make a story from the fear that would trap you
wrap it round your little finger
**** on it and let its sweet taste linger
but fear the day just the same as it plays its frames about the screen that is your eyes
pale blue
behind the sky
we die just enough to enjoy and it's tough
to live
and then say,
'give me more are you waiting for an invitation
do you want each day to change and for every situation
to halt and arrange a moratorium?'
The crematorium will burn just as well
whether we're going to Heaven or bound in chains and heading for hell
this soul would do well to remember and write this in his journal.
The infernal cacophony of philosophy does me no good
I am the tree that cannot see but locked in a wooden embrace
with a wooden face
and behind the sky grins
at my wonderings
and I,
mourning
morning
place my hopes on a tomorrow that does not come.
For some it seems
those that live and die in dreams
tomorrow
is a shadow in the waking of the day which in a way is what I see
but what I see is not what I get
the day reins me in and once again I forget the story line
in time
I will
forget it all.
Jun 9, 2013
Jun 9, 2013 at 2:33 AM UTC
we are going straight to hell
that's what she said
we are saving a regret
to keep us cold along the road
"are we going to a party?"
i never understood her fret
but i took my coat and hat
and drank my final round
she didn't even try to answer
she just went for the door
as i looked wryly at the floor
"we are going straight to hell!"
Jan 18, 2010
Jan 18, 2010 at 11:16 PM UTC
I kind of hope it does, he said,
forking at a piece of chocolate cake
too large for the plate he chose.
We didn't say much in the flat moments after.
It thickened the air as we turned
back to the TV and watched
the pretty people wryly wonder
if the world would really end.
May 14, 2012
May 14, 2012 at 1:01 AM UTC
He saw her in a moment fleeting
noticed that his heart was beating
she noticed him too, and gave a smile
more and more his heart grew wild
it exploded right out his chest
it made an awfully terrible mess
she took a look at her ***** laundry
pulled out a tissue while smiling wryly
She let him make it to first base
while wiping the entrails off her face
when they were done she giggled and smiled
and told him that though it had been fun for awhile
he was moving just a little too fast...
ripping his heart out was supposed to be last
Mar 5, 2012
Mar 5, 2012 at 10:17 PM UTC
He joined another list
of wannabees.
Now shifting his
focus on the path that lay ahead,
he got up from the twisted sheets
that covered his solo-bed,
walked mummy-like
to his cracked porcelain-sink,
faucet dripping.
He'd seen it before,
he'd seen it in the thousand yard stare
looking back at him, wryly-grinning
in the early morning gray-glow,
heart-stopping.
And he whispered,
lip-synched these words
between another cycle of dry tears,
"Ain't nothing new boy,
I know all about pain."
Dec 21, 2013
Dec 21, 2013 at 5:32 PM UTC
I awkwardly said,
I want to share my poems aloud,
At this place, underground.
I'd like it if you came.
No reply.
I anxiously mentioned,
Some of them will have you in them,
I'd like it if you came and heard,
What I had to say.
No reply.
A few days later, you talk to me, randomly.
I mention I want to see you.
I've had a bad day.
What's been bad, you say?
My job isn't working out and
my car situation is all ****** up,
and my family is ****** up too.
You don't have your car anymore?
No, family needed it more than I.
And I want to save some down before I get mine.
I say.
Emptily. Thinking. No big deal.
This is smart. This is what people do.
But you never replied.
Not once when I needed you the most.
Looking back I'm frustrated.
I cared an awful lot.
And because I did I shared myself instead of
Partaking in you. And I think at a point it became so...
needy. So frustrating. So unmanly in your eyes, that
combined with some ****** dysfunction,
we just died on the vine. Black, withered, and disgusting.
So even though we remembered being green it just,
could not go back that way. And the irony was if I had
just ever figured out how to be nonchalant,
and not care so ever ******* much,
then, chances are, you'd have been my lady.
Life is weird. People... relationships... I don't know.
It's a cruel joke sometimes. Ain't a poem for you anymore.
You never really wanted.... that. I don't know what you want but,
It isn't me. Not anymore.
My sister said, **** that *****
I smiled wryly and thought,
Once, but nevermore.
I think in the dark times of the night.
Even when the sky is bright,
Perhaps in a few years, when we are older...
I think with fear of a primal sort.
I have a girl that I love,
who I adore, and who doesn't necessarily mistreat me,
who keeps me though I'm an ******* and will take me
rich or poor but...
If you ever became someone who would come
and listen to my poetry
and hear what I have to say to you,
and cared, a little bit, sincerely,
and ever found me in your heart, truly, again...
What would I do?
I don't know but disgustingly,
I may always love you.
Apr 10, 2015
Apr 10, 2015 at 4:06 AM UTC
Evening comes early just with swiftness
Not minding to know what has to come first,
Whether going to bed first before eating supper,
Or eating supper before going to bed,
A hard question I have failed to solve
Before the glowing presence of my children,
There is utterly nothing to eat in my house
From east to west, south to north of my abode
No trace of anything worth the name victual,
No energy is there in my mandibular muscles
To tell my wife and children retire to beds,
I surrender to time to be the judge of the time
As I have exhausted my borrowing avenues,
Relatives and friends are willing to discard
Any tincture of association with myself,
Because I have wryly borrowed from all of them
Down the level of naming me Dr. lend me flour,
When dawn comes forth am scared to hysteria,
as I decry one more day to hustle for food
evening comes also in a similar gear to me
it only sets in roosting on the empty stomach
time to go on my old beddings ,forlorn to pangs of hunger.
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 7:40 AM UTC
When I’m up in the night
Because I have to ***
I say to myself wryly,
“This is longevity.”
I remind myself then
This is the way things are
When a person my age
Manages to get this far.
I repeat to myself then
How stupid I was as a kid
And make an inventory
Of the dumb stuff I did.
And how I didn’t see
How lucky I had been
To have so much energy
And ambition back then.
I remember weekends
Where I played until three
And woke up very early
Ready for the day happily.
I remind myself of freedom
From aching backs and knees,
And for decades on end,
Doing whatever I pleased.
I remember, and that alone,
Is a victory for my years
Because my memory works well;
Not so much my aging ears.
And glasses must be found
To get from here to the bed.
By now I am celebrating
That I am here, and not dead.
Aug 16, 2017
Aug 16, 2017 at 3:21 AM UTC