# ONE

    This old man in his mind
    Is young.
    The ladder he climbs
    Rung by rung
    Is a seeking thing
    For those lost songs he sang.
    Up and up he goes into thinner air
    Where there was spring and love
    And hair.
    Oh, how that mind of his reaches
    Where the images and melodies
    Were so much sweeter;
    A place old age can't defeat,
    Where nagging memories
    Hadn't happened yet,
    And life was all ambition
    And deliciously incomplete.


    # TWO

    This old man once thought
    He possessed stuff that made him content.
    But then he came to realize
    The stuff possessed him
    And not vice-versa.
    The stuff became his master and bullied him,
    Made unreasonable demands on his time,
    Harassed him, held him hostage,
    Interfered with plans, spiked relationships,
    Weighed him down, threw him into fits of jealousy and rage .
    So he sought to replace his stuff with other stuff,
    But that just made more stuff to fret and worry over.
    The answer could only be to have nothing:
    Is nothing something when something is nothing?
    He pondered: is it possible to have nothing?
    Is it possible of one's ownership to demure?
    Soon enough he will know
    When the grand eternal divestiture of stuff
    Shall occur.


    # THREE

    This old man being old and a man
    Has a secret among many he withholds,
    He has lived and prevailed,
    And having lived continues in himself
    To dwell.
    In the final reckoning none can say
    He succeeded or he failed except he alone,
    And he is disinclined to tell.


    # FOUR

    This old man puts aside that cleverness
    And pride in which in youth he did
    So guardedly abide.
    And willfully he abandons those callow asides,
    The bristling at slights, ease to take offence.
    The fierce declaration of rights,
    The dark brooding moods
    Were such a waste of time. Was it worth
    Burdening himself and others with such needless trifles?
    He has been so mellowed by his life-full.
    If only he'd known how to be old when he was
    Young and so excitable.


    # FIVE

    This old man has time
    In his hands.
    He shapes the seconds, minutes, hours,
    Sculpting small events into whole days,
    Like soaring towers,
    Fashioning notions, fascinations, adorations;
    Setting static forms in motion.
    Moving ever forward
    Toward a finished object
    Rendered smooth and neat,
    Which He will hold it in his hands
    Admiring it for a moment before he........


    # SIX

    This old man ambles
    Gamely on his morning walk.
    The path he takes is so fraught
    With lumps and rough places,
    Rocks and clumps of grass
    That others might fear to pass.
    But pushing on as though
    Nothing could impede his
    Dogged progress,
    He casts his eyes aloft
    To gaze into the leafy trees,
    Then quickly down at his feet
    As they respond to commands:
    Step this way,
    That way,
    And gingerly avoid
    That sand.
    He might hum a few notes
    Of an old familiar tune,
    Add some words of a lyric;
    Then stop abruptly and cock his head
    At a clever
    Random phrase
    He said.
    This old man's FREEDOM, LIBERTY, and THE PURSUIT
    OF HAPPINESS:
    His DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
    Is his morning walk.


    # SEVEN

    This old man is curious
    About the lost limitlessness
    That had been encroaching
    On his thoughts of late.
    All the smallness now
    So shrunken from the largeness
    That once was;
    Of his own insignificance
    Crushed among the throngs.
    Hounded to triviality
    From sound rivalry,
    Upon the once boundless reach
    Of his voice now shortened
    To a feeble squawk seeking sanctuary
    In a corner of his humble house.

    So short that was so long.
    How close and contained
    That seemed so limitless then
    Has his life become.


    # EIGHT

    This old man is in command
    Of a chamber in his mind
    Where liquid passages of his life
    Are contained in a pool of memories.
    Images flash like goldfish
    In a shimmering pond,
    As random recall trickles
    Out at first and then begins
    To Spout.
    He lets the liquid images
    Trickle, flood, or drip
    It makes no difference.
    Images bubble up and spread
    Without purpose or design.
    They are his and his alone
    And answer to his command
    To advance or to recede;
    His to do with as he pleases
    To the end.


    # NINE

    This old man more than once
    Was almost a `somebody.'
    He played the big game
    With vigor and bounce
    And came off the wall each time
    Unbroken and tall, but not
    Holding the ball.
    Many go into the game expecting to win
    Only to stumble and to fall.
    There are lots of players,
    But not many winners.
    Few of saints,
    More of sinners.
    Life is like that,
    A cake with layers
    And topped with frosting
    Called the winning players.
    Though fame and fortune
    Were ever beckoning,
    He missed being `somebody'
    By his own modest reckoning.
    But he emerged consoled
    By not being alone.
    He now numbers himself
    In the most numerous of companies:
    The "THE INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF ALMOST
    SOMEBODIES."


    # TEN

    This old man is asked about
    The future.
    "WHAT FUTURE?" rails this old man.
    His future, he says, is invested in
    A shroud.
    Then he settles down
    And begins to consider
    What it means to see
    The next hour, day, week.
    To be alive and seek the feeling
    Of pride in accomplishment,
    To know.
    As the sage once said,
    "Life is not all bricks and mortar.'
    So his future is no different
    From what it always was,
    Only now much shorter.


    # ELEVEN

    This old man hates midnights
    As far back as he can remember.
    The stroke of twelve means
    Just one thing to him:
    The end of something that once was
    And will never be again; a date, a day,
    Gone forever, neatly filed away.
    Those twelve chimes at midnight
    Well up in him the dread of all ends;
    The ends of days, of joys, of pasts, of family
    And of friends.


    # TWELVE

    This old man is stubborn'
    It is said.
    His ways are set
    Like concrete in his head.
    They might have a case;
    He's hard to budge if he thinks
    He's right.
    Just because he puts up a fight,
    They call him stubborn?
    That's all wrong.
    "Just make some sense,"
    This old man says, "And I'll
    Go along."


    # THIRTEEN

    This old man feels
    Vandalized, undone, broken,
    Ripped apart, betrayed, set adrift,
    From certain promises that were made.
    Whispered assurances, secret vows
    Made only to him and no one else.
    Exclusive truths for his ears only
    As true as hourglass sand.
    Dependable, reliable, undeniable,
    Unassailable, rock solid, bankable,
    As regale able as a military parade.
    If only he could remember
    What it was so he can collect
    Before his last December.


    # FOURTEEN

    This old man
    Has his harem secured
    `Upstairs' below where hair once grew,
    That curly mop which some would run
    Their fingers through.
    His harem lives in his memory
    Of `whos' and `wheres' and `whens.'
    The scorpion sting of romance,
    Spent and bent with love and a
    Rampant hunger for more.
    The encounters, on purpose
    Or by chance: The opportunities,
    Fumbled or advanced.
    These memories all brightened
    As the spotlight on the handsome
    Figure he thought he was gleams,
    While his obedient harem huddles,
    Now mere phantoms,
    In a dimly lighted shadows
    Of this old man's dreams.


    # FIFTEEN

    This old man misses permission
    To love recklessly as he once did.
    Most young men do, not wisely
    But relentlessly.
    To learn lessons at the knee
    Of folly fortifies ill chance
    In the eyes of fate .
    Drawn sharply from the jaws
    Of redemption, accidental foolishness
    Reveals the haunted foiled inventions
    Of youth's rebellious nattering among suspended
    Intentions .
    Foolishness and youth require
    Permissiveness, which is not given,
    As this old man learned, but taken, as upon
    Such reckless love he married and both regretted.


    # SIXTEEN

    This old man often ruminates
    On the World of children:
    His
    Yours
    Theirs
    He ponders on
    The bloom
    The stem
    The root
    The mysterious plant
    Called Parenthood,
    How it grows and thrives through
    The rigors of triumph and heartbreak,
    Through bad times and good,
    In innocence, deception, and stupidity.
    How close they were,
    As close as a kitten and her purr.
    Then slowly do they flow apart
    When yearnings to get away occur.
    The fruit
    The bloom
    The stem
    The root
    The seed
    To somehow open the gate
    To grasp the array of truths
    Contained in that mysterious plant.
    A reverie, a memory, to
    Ruminate and thereby understand
    The radiant revelation
    Limitless in its reach
    To learn from and to teach.


    # SEVENTEEN

    This old man went to his dentist
    The other day.
    In the waiting room
    He snatched a magazine
    Called, "Rolling Stone."
    He had heard of it,
    But had never read a word of it
    As he turned the pages,
    Scanned the pictures,
    And the words,
    Pain began in his eyes
    And quickly spread to his mind.
    He knew what it was
    Immediately:
    A generational thorn in his cognitive paw!
    He'd reached too far
    From his generation,
    And had picked up a sharp thorn,
    A warning that he should have stayed away.
    As in the fable, Androcles And The Lion
    This old man called out for
    Androcles
    To do what he did for
    The lion, to pull out that
    Dreadful thorn.
    Unheard was his forlorn cry.
    Androcles was otherwise occupied.
    So the thorn festered
    Gradually turning his Generational
    Cognition toxic.
    T'is a clinical fact that
    A generational thorn unattended
    Renders a disposition sour
    And critical, thereby generating scorn
    Widening the generational gulf
    Until it can no longer be crossed.
    "Androcles, Androcles, where for art thou, Adrocles,"
    Cried this old man again and again
    Holding up his cognitive paw
    Pitiful and raw.


    # EIGHTEEN

    This old man freely admits
    He wasn't any good at being young.
    In his youth, he says,
    He was quiet and withdrawn;
    `Shy' they said he was,
    But rather what he really was;
    An unrung fire bell
    At a roaring conflagration.
    He avoided sports and physical exertion,
    Stuck to books and few words in conversation.
    The years came and went
    With little enthusiasm,
    And before he knew it
    He was old and concerned with
    His physical condition.
    By then he felt he'd been
    Old for so long, he couldn't remember
    If he'd ever been young.
    If only he could find out about
    How to be good at being old,
    That would be something
    He could finally feel good
    About.


    # NINETEEN

    This old man listens
    Only to agreeable words.
    No longer will he place
    His ear on the ground
    To listen for the sound
    Of a stampeding herd
    Voicing stagnating opinions.
    Harsh commands, bleating demands.
    Noises of voice manipulation
    Have filled him with yearning
    To avoid all the soul churning
    Handing out orders infers .
    So he's earned the right
    To turn away from the fight
    And to all that
    Turn a deaf ear.
    And file the intent to hear
    Only what he wants
    To hear,


    # TWENTY

    This old man knows
    What it means being old
    Better than any bold pundit.
    Being old's not unique.
    Nor to wish for or to seek;
    It's just there in his hands
    And his feet, not to mention
    Everywhere else.
    `Old' is in mirrors
    In his and others' eyes.
    It is what he's become,
    Worn out and sour,
    And in places gone numb.
    The contrast of what was
    And what is is appalling:
    To think he was once creaking- free,
    Could climb a tree, hike a mountain,
    In the face of danger
    Beat a hasty retreat over uneven ground,
    And participate in fate's eternal
    Reciprocal:
    "WHAT GOES AOUND COMES AROUND."


    # TWENTY-ONE

    This old man appears deep in thought
    Looking up at nothing in the sky.
    How could they know
    How playfully his mind
    Is mingling with the clouds,
    Vast mysteries changing form,
    Merging, then pulling apart,
    Flowing gently, then racing
    Only to stop and shift
    And billow and spill
    Lightly against the blue.
    He tracks them as they
    Form palaces with parapets
    Before they scatter
    And squirm into fluffy folds.
    Up among those clouds
    Lies his sanctuary.
    Where his mind escapes
    Useless drafts of talk,
    A world of rank and panting crowds,
    Rounds of his own wormy thoughts;
    None can reach even
    The hem of the skirt
    Of the nearest frock of clouds.


    # TWENTY-TWO

    This old man
    Entertains his ghost
    Late at night when all is quiet.
    In the dark as close as
    A tree trunk to its bark.
    His ghost hovers over its host
    Whispering juvenile pranks
    Forgotten comrades joined in
    Evoking sudden laughter
    At those youthful ribald stories
    Almost forgotten juvenile humor
    Told to each other hovering in a corner,
    ( Or behind a convenient garage)
    Hoping to grow old faster by telling dirty jokes.
    In the dark he blushes shyly at the scenes
    His ghost flashes by him from his slightly checkered past.
    When he can no longer stand it
    The laughter and blood rushing
    He sends off his ghost
    With a curt wave of his hand.
    Enough for now this old man whispers
    Of the past, its boils and blisters.
    He'll now go to sleep with a smile on his lips,
    Glowing with that brief reunion with
    Those lost happy hipsters.


    # TWENTY-THREE

    This old man has planned
    A come-back before the
    Third act curtain of his final play.
    One last strut upon the stage
    Will cause a stir of emotion
    Among those sure that such
    Impertinence should never occur.
    The part he's secretly
    Planned to mount
    Is about an evil count
    Not unlike Count Dracula,
    But slightly less
    Spectacular.


    # TWENTY-FOUR

    This old man speaks forcefully
    And looks you in the eye.
    He sets his jaw and
    And stabs his boney finger
    Making motions like a saw
    Driving home a point or
    Refusing on a point to linger.
    Yet it's all a pose,
    For he has no more
    Real force of will,
    Strength to impose,
    Or impulse to anger,
    But rather a specter
    Of what he was,
    A silhouette against a garden wall
    Cast by a flickering dying light,
    Now a sunset which was once
    Noonday bright.


    # TWENTY-FIVE

    This old man remembers how
    Vain he was about his looks.
    His hair just right,
    The shave, the teeth brushed white.
    The search for flecks
    Of dandruff on the shoulders
    Of a blue serge suit,
    A suit conforming to
    Fashion's strict dictates:
    Lapels the proper shape,
    Trousers creased razor-sharp breaking at he shoe,
    Jacket cuffs showing
    Just a slice of white,
    The tie tied in a Windsor knot or forandhand
    Whether in or out of fashion,
    But always right.
    Shoes polished, black or brown
    Or white, depending on the season.
    This old man sighs, shakes his head
    And mutters," I wouldn't have played
    That silly game without a very good
    Reason."