Dreams Of Glory

DREAMS OF GLORY

Hope springs eternal
While empires decay and die
Without being mourned

Sweet Autumn

SWEET AUTUMN

Amid fruitfulness
Dissolution and decay
As the nights draw in

Brief

BRIEF

The body? Clothing.
Decay? Inevitable.
Task? Observation.

Alphabet For The Third Age

ALPHABET FOR THE THIRD AGE

A’s for arthritis; B’s the bad back
C’s the chest pains, perhaps cardiac?
D is for dental decay and decline
E is for eyesight; can’t read that top line!

F is for fissures and fluid retention
G is for gas (which I’d rather not mention)
H high blood pressure; I’d rather have low
I for incisions with scars you can show

J is for joints, out of socket, won’t mend
K is for knees that crack when they bend
L’s for libido; what happened to sex?
M is for memory; I forget what comes next

N is neuralgia, in nerves way down low
O is for osteo-; bones that don’t grow
P for prescriptions; I have quite a few
Just give me a pill and I’ll be good as new!

Q is for queasy; is it fatal or flu?
R is for reflux; one meal turns to two
S is for sleepless nights, counting my fears
T is for tinnitus – bells in my ears!

U is for urinary (troubles with flow)
V for vertigo, that’s – “dizzy” you know
W for worry ’bout what’s going ’round?
X is for X ray, and what might be found

Y for another year I’m left here behind
Z is for zest I still have – in my mind!
I’ve survived the symptoms and I’m still employed
Keeping twenty-six doctors all fully deployed!

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I just rediscovered this on my pc. I’d completely forgotten it, and where I found it. I certainly didn’t compose it. I wish. 😀 A DuckDuckGo search (https://duckduckgo.com) finds it all over the place, but no author for me to credit. You may have seen it before, but if not …

Helen And Her Balloon

…..
…..
HELEN AND HER BALLOON

And walked from my life into another dream
Where I might drink more deeply of my madness
Of balloons, of Man’s conquest of the mighty
And strange incandescences cast loose upon a shoreless sea

The elements of wind and fire combined
To lift our spirits into sudden communion
As atop the derelict tower we tasted
The soft kiss of the forbidden

The elements assembled, the flame applied
Fierce tongues so close to devouring
The delicate tissues hungry for the warmth
That will send them soaring

As a lover is hungry for love or death
And struggles wildly, desperately for equilibrium
Against the dangers of the murderous wind
Can our love survive the buffets of the gale?

A moment’s anxiety and then the word
Holding of breath – now we must surrender control
Let go, it swoops once, lurches earthward straight at me and then …
It flies! It flies!

Hangs steady and peaceful and drifts away to the wind’s beckoning
And communion grows around our shared success
As we strain to follow its dot into the far limits of vision
The pointillism of rods and cones

Like all fine art an expression of the transient
In defiance of its doom – like all fine artists
Condemned to drift into the rarefied ether of their thirties
As delivery men or out-of-work piano players

Drifts away – to come to ground who knows how
A plummeting Icarus with a pall of flame
Or a limp landfall in some muddy ditch
Sinking back into the anonymity of decay