Evolution

16 December 2012

 

Evolution

 

Why cannot death be like a light switched off

“Click” and the room, the hall, the world is dark

And colors, shapes, and individuals

Bereft of contours cannot be distinguished.

This is the price we pay for evolution.

Assets

20 Dec. 12

If I were to list my assets

As befits a man of means.

I would check my latest statements,

Bank accounts and cash and deeds.

Own Death

1 December 2012

As far as myself is concerned

My death is my own.

It need not be planned, corrected, approved

By thunderous counsel

Or by insistent and constant

Muttered maternal advice. 

If I am Standing

8 December 2012

If I am standing, I will fall;

If I am sitting, I will slump; 

But if I am in bed, 

Popular

8 May 2009


Am I more popular, now that I’m lame?
The people I have met a month ago,
A year ago, (and to my shame I must
Admit that I’d forgotten them completely,)
Will hail me in the street: “How are you, John?”
And smile at me, a cherished dear, dear friend.

The Chair

An office chair on wheels, when used as a support, can prove treacherous.....
and it might get confiscated
but we are dealing with an adult...

Dear Pam,

1) I am a sinner.

2) I hang my head in shame, but I love ...

3) my old chair, and I retrieved it from the storeroom at the end of the passage, and now I am sitting on it, and feel most comfortable, and can reach everything around me by pushing with my feet, and …

4) I solemnly promise not to use it as a support when I stand, and …

5) I know we will have a spirited discussion.

The Grave

My stepson has complained to me

That death, and nothing but this theme

Is the recurring one in all

My verses.

I do agree.

Firstly it is a legally prescribed

Condition that entry in this home

Depends upon the applicant to have agreed

Upon the service, grave site and so on.

That shall apply

In case of need.

Not only did I cheerfully comply

But also (and this is the second reason)

I do not fear my death, because I will

See her again, kiss her again, for ever

And ever more.

Doctor

15 October 2012

My doctor’s age is less than mine

By thirty years and more.

I do recall when he grew up

He thought I was a bore.

Indeed I have experienced

What every man has sought,

Yet it is he who at my grave

Will say: “He never talked!”

Forgiveness

14 October 2012

There is a gross disparity

Between my present life and how

I lived before.

My school years echo with injunctions:

“You must do well! You must be trained

To fight to live!”

13 October 2012

13 October 2012

He died and did not know he did.

He walked more slowly, stumbling, swearing.

The right side of his body shrunk

He used his left to reach the ground;

But in the mirror, pink and tanned,

I saw the face that would not die.

Flash

8 September 2012

Put briefly and succinctly –

I am not used to being old.

Then could this be the reason for

My writing verses to uncover

Prosaic truth?

Forty... forty-five,,,

10 March 2012

Of all the faculties and skills

And talents that I once possessed…

I can still dream;

And in my dreams I am not old.

I may be forty, forty-five,

All systems go.

I have retained the impetus

Of youth, the desperate drive to kiss

And force and yield.

But waking I can only ponder

About the women that I know

And cannot bed.

Answering Machine

30 March 2012

I have an answering machine that can

Respond to any phone call when I’m out;

I am connected to the internet

To browse the news whatever it’s about.

And on the hour every radio speaks

About who did, or didn’t, or may still

Act foolishly or wisely: watch the till

Or take the lot and run. 

Worthwhile

5^th August 2012

So, has it been worthwhile?

It took two marriages and one drawn-out affair

To find, to choose, to pick

The right, the only one that suits my bed and board.

Home, Sweet Home

16 October 2011

HOME, SWEET HOME

I prefer to think of myself as a young man, not that I want to be young again.  I have dragged myself some two hundred yards away from home to sit on a bench (part wet – it has been raining), and I am contemplating the next step – do I cross the road or don’t I?

Limp

24 July 2012

I shall limp to my grave. No, no, that is wrong;
I shall lie on my back in a shiny black car.
Two uniformed men will manoeuvre my corpse
By trolley past tombstones and crosses and stars
To mountains of soil from a freshly dug grave.


There’ll be stony-faced men and eyes dabbing women
And maybe a whisper from one that I knew:
“He hated the sound of the dirt being shovelled
And crashing like drumbeats on him that I knew…”
But I will be still and in silence agree.

Double Dipping

30 AUGUST 2008

DOUBLE DIPPING

You are from the Elysian Observer? Not that I care. Those two blokes came by here, not together, mind you, the one with the crown, his name was Arthur, oh, King Arthur! Sorry! Well, he came first, very gentlemanly, very polite, could I sharpen his sword, and how much would it come to?  Well, I said, this is worth a complete overhaul, pretty blunt at the tip. And I gave him an estimate – 20 Gulden, and if you want to pay in Marks or Shekels, that will be alright. You see, I get quite a few customers from the Middle Ages, and the occasional enquiry from some biblical warrior, and of course Central European fanatics will never let up.

I Was There

16 July 2011

But I was there …

His name was Herzfeld, Dr. Herzfeld.   He taught Geography and History at the local college, the Marburg Institute. He must have been in his thirties; tall, amiable, running to fat, too young to have served in the army in the First World War.  After a spirited lecture on the 17th century peace treaties at Osnabrück and Münster, when the 30 years feud in Germany between Catholics and Protestants was ostensibly laid to rest, he clapped me on the shoulder as we left the classroom.  “We’ve got some way to go, eh?” he chortled.  I was sure that this was meant to be recognition of each other as fellow Jews, living in what is now called the Weimar Republic.

Scarlet Woman

3 September 2011

SCARLET WOMAN

The first Scarlet Woman I ever met wore an ankle length blue dressing gown and felt slippers. Her hair streaked brown, blond with wisps of white, hung over one shoulder. She stood at the open door of this terrace house in North Melbourne, shivering slightly, and looked at me questioningly. The time was 11 o’clock in the morning.

If I Win Tattslotto....

 written 16 September 2010

If I win Tattslotto …

My name is Morris.   When I turned seventeen I was still virgin.  I had better supply details to prove this statement. I am an only child, male, of a stiff-lipped father and an ever-fussing mother.  I started life in a rented ramshackle house in Lower Bluecreek (to this day an undesirable neighbourhood), but now we live in a three story (counting the basement) villa in a fashionable outer suburb. 

There is Room

There is room in my room,
There is room in my bed,
But I do not know whom to invite.
I married two women,
I slept with some more,
But I know not, I cannot decide.

In my dimly lit past
There are sparkles of love
And of lips pursed in answer to passion.
But the present is void
Of the conqueror’s thrill, 

I fear – I’m no longer in fashion.

I dreamt

I dreamt I was a zebra
My intellect intact.
I lived and grazed and frolicked
In manner circumspect.

The Mirror

Written 12 December 2010

The Mirror

What’s with this mirrored face so stern,

Bald-headed.and (as I

Have said before), grim and,

Judgmental, unforgiving?

The Road

THE ROAD

I sat beside the asphalt road                            

Just resting for an instant,

And chanced to hear a sombre note

Come trailing weird and distant.

It was a sound, just barely heard.

I looked around: This is absurd!

What makes a noise like this one?

A Poem for 14th June 2012

I’ve made a firm decision.
Whoever calls me on,
Won’t be a hooded skeleton,
Walkyrie or Charon.

It’ll be a vibrant figure,
All dressed in dernier cri:
“Excuse me, we have met before!

You come along with me!”

First attempt

How fortunate am I to learn from my daughter (who is of mature  age) how to create a blog that expresses my (very mature age, actually 89 and a half) sentiments.