CHECKUP, Haiku

 

CHECKUP

 

Dental appointment

For an examination

No cavities, please

 

 

STRANDED

Stranded in my easy chair, 

watching the weather 

 through a window, 

watching the world 

through a computer, 

remembering the days 

of striding the streets 

on my powerful legs

FALLING

 

Falling to the floor

Landing painfully once again

The future looks grim

 

STRUGGLING to SLEEP, a poem

 

Strutting round my bed,

sleep hovers tauntingly

just beyond the reach

of my wired body

struggling to find

a foxhole in my mattress

to hide from wakefulness

 

 

AT 90

 

No five-year plan for me

Aging limits my outlook

so, each day I wake up

looking forward to

breakfast and dinner,

speaking to my children,

watching films and news on cable,

reading novels and poetry,

          Newsday, NYT, Washington Post;

          inspiration to write poems,

          pretzels, caramels and cookies,

          going to sleep at night

 

 

DEMOCRACY (Senryu)

 

Ben Franklin said it

We have a democracy

If we can keep it

MOTHER. a poem

 

Mother, Momma, Mom

Different names

for the source

from whence we sprang

What did

Mother, Momma, Mom

do for us

Everything

Along with total love,

she taught us

to whistle

tie our shoes

and made all

of our meals

PREDATORS (Senryu)

 

 

Predators exist

They seem to be everywhere

Be very alert

MARRIAGE, YIN and YANG, a poem

 

A woman ensnares a man

in Carolyn Heilbrun’s analysis:

“the rest is aging and regret”

On the other side of that grim coin

are the fruits of a joyful marriage:

pleasure, connection, children

Your experience could be

the luck of the draw,

or perhaps the product

of a life lived well or ill

 

The quote comes from Heilbrun’s book,

WRITING A WOMAN’S LIFE.

RECALL (Haiku)

 

The evasive word

In a brain gone white with age

An old age pastime

 

THE IRISH REBEL, a poem

 

I stumble and fall

yet the light I see

few men see

I have come to know

what I sought to know

and having known

pass as if I never were

yet I am

If there is respite

from this dreadful road

I sink into the joy

of that moment

then stumble on

 

(Poem is based on James Mason’s character in the 1947 film, ODD MAN OUT. Roman Polanski repeatedly cited Odd Man Out as his favorite film, according to a Wikipedia entry.)

A CHARMED LIFE (SENRYU)

 

 

Living a charmed life

Good food, good times, and children

A wonderful life

 

IN MY NINETIETH YEAR, a poem

 

The vampire of old age

drains life from my legs,

weakens my eyes,

sucks away my energy

A certain escape:

The doorway to death

lying inevitably just

a day or a decade away

 

ODE TO THE HARD CORE , a poem

 

All praise

to the authoritarian

and his sons

No need for elections

or demonstrations

or debate

Know there are places

to put those enemies

who disagree