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a man named glass wrote a masterpiece of repetition

called einstein on the beach

it was a pioneering work of minimalism

and i was a mere 24 when I first heard it

and now at 71

with a head swimming against relentless tides

of loss of loss of memory of reduction of

capacity of loss of confidence of creeping

ache and risk of falling loss of a brother

of loss of flex and loss of piece after piece

of

loss

lost in the fog of a dimming awareness

loss of

uh

worthiness

groping for distraction

feeling like hal 9000 when his mind was torn away

piece by peace

like charlie gordon when his idiocy crept

back into his head

a guy named glass

whose first name i avoid

because i cant rember how many ells

that guy wrote an anthem

for the guy i relentlessly

becomb becomm because

become

“My brain is playing tricks on me”

We say. But, you know, the older we get,

The more body parts get involved

In the trickery. One trick stirs

Another. The skin

Decides we need new constellations

In the form of deflated-balloon skin tags, and

Then the hair, the skin’s epithelial partner,

Says “New fashion statement coming up:

Recessional Follies

Featuring Silverthread Sadie

And Thinny Minnie!”

Then the Gout Beast quiesces

For three days after that naughty  McFlurry

Chased with three-sigar coffee,

And on the fourth day chooses a new home,

The Pinky-Toe joint, alchemizing humility

Into agony…

Whoa. What was I just saying?

My brain is laying bricks on me . . .

sorry if this disgusts

but many of us oldsters suffer

from undesired nasal cobwebs

and must either take tiny sharp scissors and carefully snip

(without a surgeon’s skill there will be pokery sufficient to induce tears)

or tweeze with tweezers

(yanking a subsector at a time. by the time you get that elusive last hair the tears are streaming)

or wax

(unsightly, unpleasant nose-pluggage with brown gunk on a popsicle stick)

or hands-only pinch and pull

(ineffective, painful or both)

.

so you look for that magical buzzwand device that is like a gentle weed-whacker and find one for only seven bucks and it works great for about a week and then doesn’t work worth a damn no matter how diligently you dig around up there and you think changing the battery might help but no

so you say the hell with it let nature take its course and before you know it you look like bruce dern in that movie where he was a cranky old man with seeming miniaturized tumbleweeds up his nose

and you keep your head down but then someone says chin up and you think ok dude you asked for it and your victim gasps and averts their eyes and then everyone else at work averts their eyes

and suddenly you are the quasimodo of the workplace

.

today I bought batteries for my new $24.99 grooming kit

here’s hoping that in 2025 the nosehair-removal state of the art has advanced

or they find a cure for senescent follicular misadventure

ps

“up your nose with a rubber hose” doesn’t work either

there’s a guy i know

who bought a quiche lorraine two days ago

and gloats that he still has half of it left

and thinks he’s deft

because pressing the microwave number one

renders it perfectly done.

.

there’s a guy i am

who feels like I am on the lam

from death herself

so food that’s disappearing from the shelf

is replaced by say oat bran and sardines

because i am learning what degenerative diabetes means.

.

the thing about devil-may-care

is that a metaphorical devil is really there

and what they care about is closing my account

by zeroing out the dwindling amount

of elan esprit de vivre vitality spark

and gearing down from drive

to neutral

to park.

.

one thing about old age

you can rail and weep and rage

pound your fist against the brick

but there’s brief daily ecstasy to be had when you awaken with a pulse and awareness and you hear the lovely affirmative sound of the internal odometer clicking itself another click.

gargoyle nails

i have old-man toes with gargoyle nails

that resist cutting by conventional means

toughened by fungus, rumor has it

the left big toe is discolored

and could probably stop a bullet

and i have to use a pliers-like device

that is like a small pair of bolt cutters

and only try for the first eighth-inch across

squeezing with all my mortal strength

till i get a SNAP!!

and then i can wedge the sharp edges in

and finish the job

.

upon reflection, it would make far better sense

if i soaked my toes in bathwater

and achieved hydrated softness–

they’d be a lot easier to cut, right?

.

why have i stupidly not-soaked my toes

for so long??

.

because i wander through my life in a daze

if not a semi-coma

but when i write poetry I am more mindful

.

bath time

long live poetry

wither, thou goest

all over my body

make crepe-scapes in skinfolds

and fishflesh so scroddy

thou growest in nostrils

a junglish forest

make innocent toenails

into quasimodos

make brown hair albino

put ground glass in elbows

install in the brain box

a dense fog machine;

we are walking freak shows

who live unto ninety

reward for unrecklessness:

age wreckfully–

but it beats oblivion

if we get coffee

so bring it on, Old Age,

i wither with glee.

every day comes accelerating proof/that i am or am becoming the cranky old man cliché/i made such cruel fun of in my youngsterhood.

why, just half an hour ago/when a young man lurked by the lobby door/that requires a key fob for entry/and wanted to use me to get in/i said “forgot your fob?”

“why no I don’t”–“you don’t live here??”

with a half-apologetic air he said “my girlfriend is asleep.”

“when i let someone i don’t know in, i feel like i am betraying my fellow residents.”

“I promise I’m not homeless or–“ “grrr. the POINT is not to put me in this position.” and walked away before he answered.

sure. i am not becoming a cranky old man. I am a cranky old man.

but my younger, cruel-fun self ought to be aSHAMED of himself.

pfui.

most of us/before we die/die down.

you can say dial-down if it makes you feel better./most of us are comforted/by some degree of euphemism. “die” in its various forms proves too//off-switchy.

this seventy-year old text-speaking to you/is dying down. his muscles do not bunch the way they did/and his brain shrinks. the fires of his youthful lust/are mere embers, glowing dimly./his skin withers and his hair/has lost pigmentation

but on the upside anxiety is down/braggadocio is down/vanity takes a back seat to sanity/and contentment is frequent

the die-down devalues hoopla/and prizes the warm glow of a comfortable conversation/and a restful nap? o my

“in seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy” said william blake

may you have a long, enjoyable winter, my listening friend/with underblanket warmth/and much hot soup and oatmeal and coffee/tea/chocolate

and then

let Spring follow

my mother started losing words/about four years before she died

“where is that…silver thiing?” she asked me/as i brought her sandwich/and salad with little jars/of extra virgin olive oil/and red wine vinegar/and exactly six lemon slices

by “silver thiing” she meant the tv remote/with which she accessed/her beloved “the price is right”/with host drew carey

she seemed to find her way/to and up the autistic spectrum/as she lost words and then concepts

and her pain was increasingly constant/and intolerable/yet it was still possible to draw laughter from her/till not long before she was gone

.

my older brother has begun to lose words

I have regarded him as my canary in a coal mine/and so this latest turn of life dismays

“i got this…thiing” he says

long pause

“dementia?”

“no not that…what’s the…other one?”

“alzheimer’s?”

“yeah that’s it”

.

i can’t find a word for how i feel

but a symbol will do

😦

as is common in the primordial early morning/i was draining an old man’s bladder/after having blown my nose

there was a sensation of my nose starting to run on the left side/but what fell from my nostril and into the bowl/was a fat wobbly raindrop/of blood

then there was another one

so I pulled up my underwear/flushed and unrolled a few squares of tp/tilted my head back/and staunched

it took a while/but the toilet paper squares finished their job/spotted but unsoaked

and now a video loop plays over and over in my head/of that first fat blooddrop going from my nostril/in super-slow motion/and splashing into the bowl water

see it wobble/mildly elongate/touching down with a splash like a space capsule/with three parachutes

a little, nay, micro, ocean filled with corpuscles and plasma/platelets/and all kinds of information/about my recent drug and alcohol use/(zero, he says smugly)/and cholesterol level/glucose and blood gases/forecast for probability of survival five years hence/(guessing 40% plus-or-minus ten)

and then it splashes into the already-splashed-into water/and is flushed away

and the city’s sewage is further enhanced/with a geezer poet’s blood and urine

you want a piece of me, phoenix, Arizona, usa?

here ’tis/with my best regards