“Fifty-Nine”

 

c.2020 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(11-20)

 

Months past fifty-nine

Creaky, stooped over my canes

Not the man I was

In yonder days

Out of the workforce

Out on the porch

With a beer in the afternoon

From January to June

And beyond

Popping tops and toasting memories

This is the new me

A reprieve

From years of hard knocks

When I struggled with apocalyptic thoughts

Of fate and fortune at work

Pondering my self worth

Wishing for a bed in the dirt

I often felt adrift

Unable to save myself

So many stories to tell

Words crushed against my clenched lips

I needed a release

To tell the tales

Inside of me

I prayed for a better condition

Hands raised to the sun

And received a blessing

As Sol dropped below the horizon

Loss was my gain

The benefit of arthritis pain

No longer able to walk

Now I had time to compose

To steal a beggar’s clothes

To revisit the Liberty

Of life on the street

With no burden of responsibility

Reckless, feckless

True only to me

Writing by darkness

Slumbering under the blue sky

Never feeling more alive

Jimmy Breslin

Mike Royko

Erma Bombeck

I don’t need a paycheck

What the heck

In this time of a dollar store, sublime

I feel free

A hero with broken knees

Listen, if you please

This is my testimony

Shouting lyrics from ‘Mony, Mony’

I graduated from a company serf

To a beggar bum

With a melodic hum

Repeated for my friends

Or anyone who will listen

The most important part of this journey

Has come to pass

When I raised the glass

Introspection

Vivid visions

I take this position

Bowed and bent by my circumstance

Meager coins in the pockets of my pants

Yet glad for the chance

To make my stand

A wordsmith

Back at the keyboard

Tapping out words

I would not trade my failed joints

For Green Stamps or travel points

The worst calamity

Is better than surrendering

That which I inherited

The day they said

“Your career is dead!”

A senior, shuffling, in tattered shoes

Where less is more and old is new

The mirror says that time runs slow

But I regained a child’s hope

Inside the gloom of age displayed

I found a gift

Of a better day

Chaucer said “Time and tide wait for no man”

I discovered in failure a better plan

When my legs could no longer stand

Then I had a puncher’s chance

To write the wit

Rise above the bullshit

Here I sit

In my cubby by the front steps

Never to forget

How I walked out of Columbus, Ohio

Far away from my home

Across America, and back again

Careened through careers

With a buzzing in my ears

Of electric guitar

The soundtrack

Of never going back

To the rat race paradigm

I’d rather sit outside

At 39 degrees

The cold aching my knees

While I think up lines of verse

Nuggets of gold in my purse

Disability ain’t the worst

This is a first

My poetic rebirth

Glad am I to live

Gladder still to spin what I can give

Jackery jumping joyfully

Dead I was

Alive I shall be

No longer stuck in a corporate khazi

Thoughts At Large

Long after dark

Wide-eyed

Wistful

Wondering

Junior spy with my decoder ring

From cereal box tops

Sent in the post

I give my most

Nothing else do I know

Look out below

I am a better fellow

With the burned-out embers of yesterday

Left in the ashtray

 

Written on my iPhone SE