How’s life, old buddy
Between seventy and eighty,
eighty and ninety
Perpetually in a hurry
Heading for the cemetery
Amid emotional poverty
Are we racing against time
Or the lack of it
As tiny seconds tick away
Tick and click
Click and tick
I miss every beat
Talk of rush hours
Caught and missed
Then missed again
Everything’s touch
And go from here
Damn that bucket list
Under the spell of that cuckoo clock
Ticking away precious seconds
Long hand, short hand
So many more hands to shake
Perchance to kiss
Under time pressure
Ban the clock
The hour glass of youth
Or the giant stand-alone
Left behind by grandfather
On a brown wall that has seen better days
My image stands
Crumpled by years of neglect
Warts and all
Wear and tear
Hits and misses
Wrinkled by sun and rain
And fatherhood itself
Meanwhile
I sit back, try to relax
Too late in the day
I still got a toothache
I grow gall stones, too,
Like they were gems
In one’s belly
And a fatty liver as well
Meanwhile, my glucose
Has issued a threat
Rising like the price of gas
And so has my uric acid
Now, I’ve fallen prey to rituals
Nights before bedtime
I wipe this face with Neutrogena
Gently dry the same
With soft cotton towel
From California
To soothe the pores
Ever so softly
Gently now
I pick a cotton ball
From a bag of cosmetic fluff
Dip it into some cleansing white
To wipe off sins committed or omitted,
more dirt and grime
On this face oldened
Hardened by years
Of stress and hard labor
Between trains and buses
Between passion and compassion
Under sun and rain
I wet my forefinger with cream
This one’s for wrinkles
And crow’s feet around
The droopy eyes
That I pray
Won’t show as yet
When I smile at strangers
And assorted lovers
From yesterday
When I was young
From here to eternity
I go up to my head
With another cotton ball
Soaked in herb
I scrub the part
Where hair used to grow
Like green grass lush
On a mountain side
Where are they now
I sigh in sheer drowsiness
Worried about the eyebags
That might give me away tomorrow
When I rush under
The spell of old grandfather’s clock
To catch the last bus
To the land called
Forever Young.
