First let me hasten to say I am not suicidal. The title derives partly from Ben Franklin’s POOR RICHARD’S ALMANACK aphorism that “Nine of ten men are suicides.” And Ben is one of those proverbial People At The Dinner Table that I would have if I could have six of anyone who ever lived over for dinner and conversation. (Other possible candidates are Dorothy Parker, Li Po, Texas Guinan, Rex Stout, Maya Angelou, Sally Rand, Groucho Marx, Nick Drake, Isaac Asimov, Jean Toomer…it’s going to be hard to narrow it down!)

Though I’m not suicidal, I’m not taking reasonable steps to extend my life. Currently I’m about 70 pounds overweight. I don’t smoke or drink or drug or gamble, but I’m a man with a past. So by Ben Franklin’s yardstick, unless I drop a few dozen pounds and some of my less life-enhancing proclivities (recreational sleep deprivation, for instance), I will be one of the nine out of ten.

But I so long to live! But it must be a life whose quality includes full mental faculties and not too much pain!

Last night at Balboa House, a monthly East Valley poetry event hosted by my friends Debra Berman and Joe Montaño, I performed the following poem, which I will submit as fulfillment of the title of this post as my Suicide Note, Draft #817:

the old and the lonesome
November 15, 2013 at 11:59pm

less than fifty years ago people cared what she thought
commented when she changed her hairstyle
speculated excitedly when she made a vague and coy remark
about a fellow thespian of the opposite sex

now she sneaks a cigarette in her room at the independent living home
and waits for a phone call from a son or a friend
as tears slide here and there and sighs abound

she hasn’t changed much on the inside
but people care so much about the outside

slowly she acquires citizenship with this community of castoffs
the old and the lonesome whose dreams were realized but never replenished

one morning she canes her way to the lobby
scans the sign with the changeable type

9:30 TRIVIA TIME
10:00 FITNESS
11:30 LET’S CROCHET
1:00 PET VISIT WITH GILDA & NAT
2:30 VAN TO DOLLAR STORE
3:00 AA MEETING – UPSTIRS GREATROOM

she feels mild contempt for the sign’s update person and his “UPSTIRS”
she feels bereft of meaning
she goes back to her room and looks for the remote