The Menace of the Years: Sanity Senile

I’ve roamed damp dark streets,
and drowned in waters blue.
Blotted whites grey,
and known love and pain to be true too.

Of mice and men-
mice so grand,
and men that once lived in dens.

I’d see it through from sane to senile,
had they not been the same every once in a while.

All I can do is sit,
sit and look, as the world passes me by.

We, too, once tread the world this way;
much, much before knowing how time flies.

We’ve sunk our heads in loss and shame,
and basked in victorious gains.
We’ve trudged swampy waters, and sit awhile in the shade.

I have known well enough to look up and smile on a rainy day.
I’ve felt the sun shine on my face,
and the wind fuel my cape.

I, too, in the wilderness have weeped.
I, too, as heroic as can be have screamed.

I’ve witnessed martyrs lay down their life.
And that lasting pride in their eyes.

I’ve seen how judicial balances are tipped.
How in a blind court,
the blacks, whites and greys eclipse.

I’ve seen corruption on luncheons,
while innocence rots in dungeons.

I’ve had hot cross buns,
six pence worth,
and delved in dining fine.

So fast, I’ve seen the green perish,
and give way to the greys in human life.

I’ve seen a face really sad,
the kind that angels are supposed to have.
And devious eyes,
I’ve seen, fulfilling beauty’s lack.

I’ve held rage inspite,
and bathed my soul in the opera of everyday life.

I’ve beheld many an old wise owl to make a pelican from a crane.
I’ve seen enough to know,
at the end of the day,
it’s all the same.

---

My talk is feeble.
My walk is slow.
My sanity is now senile.
Oh, how wonderful it is to have lived a life worthwhile.

As I watch youth burn amidst my gleaming snow,
soon, this sanity senile will have rendered me on the other side.

But now that I lie, it’s my turn to smile.
As I relish the taste of freezing youth and bones-
Half there, almost a corpse, welcome to the final show.

Don’t you dare slow down.
Don’t you dare tone the rage down.
(There’s a certain charm in the arrogant young, a certain bliss in their ignorant mortality.)

Oh, what the menace of the years has done to this sanity o’ mine!

No matter your share of rues and being beaten blue.
Save the revelry in all of life’s myriad hues.

For dust you are and unto dust you shall return.
What the wind carries along is the life all mice and all men yearn.

© achillesheelpoetry, 2022

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