POP! POP! POP! Go the Years

I still have more hair on my crown than
sprouting from my ears and nostrils.
I can still get out of my car.
(Getting in is easy.)
I can still get it up
and even in, with a little help
from my friend.

I can still remember a lot of things --
for example that word I couldn't recall
yesterday, then later in the day
it came to me -- what was it...?
(I'm joking. I remember it well:
Pyrotechnic.) I can still joke
about words that go away
on vacations.

But why am I making such a fuss
about being 63? I'm in good shape.
I should wait until I'm 85
to kvetch about growing old.

Yeah, but what if my heart explodes
next week or next year, bye-bye,
and I'll have missed the chance
to write about being old.

So allow me to lie back on the grass
and admire the fireworks,
nerve ending after nerve ending
in the brain firing off in brief blossoms
against the long night we like
to imagine, black velvet stage curtains
before which our brains make
the grand speeches and noble gestures
tragic heroes.

I've mixed up some metaphors there,
but if pyrotechnic appears (and disappears)
in act one, we're bound to drag in fireworks
in what I thought would be act five,
but here I am, still talking. Being alive
in an ageing body
is a mixed metaphor.

Dean

Comments

[j b]

Ooo! Excellent imagery and word choice. My top two are the "words that go on vacations" and the fifth stanza. Pop pop! go the years! I'm feeling them going as well. ^_^ ---JB