FIFTY AND HOLDING

FIFTY AND  HOLDING

Last year I turned 51, this year I am 52,
An inauspicious milestone that just won't do,
Life is streaming faster than high speed Internet,
And age is just a number I would just as soon forget.

Try as I like, I cannot stop time,
From covering me up with its gruel and its grime,
Churning me up like sewage or refuse,
Fodder for old jokes, harbinger of blues.

So if anyone asks I've stopped having birthdays,
I'm just walking around demented and dazed,
I'm still in the game, playing not folding.
It's just I've decided to be 50 and holding.

Age is just a number, that's what they tell me,
Along with the other rubbish they sell me.
I should have put an end to my birthdays at 30,
They're really not worth all the fuss and the worry.
So Geraldo can post shirtless pictures at 70,
Claiming it's the new sixty,
How clever of him, how cunning, how cheeky, 
I'll keep my shirt on, if it's all the same,
I've never been studly or known for my ass,
And my abs are as dull as a clipped blade of grass.
Half a century was all I expected at first,
Now I fear the absolute worst,
That if I'm not careful, I'll live to be stately,
And live to the ripe old age they call eighty,
A drooling irreverent irrelevant old fool,
Racing my wheelchair on the track after school.
Wandering to God knows where,
And wreaking all kinds of havoc on stairs.

Even now when I walk, I walk with a limp,
Am called sir by the young ones, those impudent imps,
My speech it is slurred as a drunken sailor,
My pants need the constant eye of a tailor.
So put the world on notice, from now on time stands still,
Like a Hollywood starlet, I shall lie, yes, I will.
I will wear the tragicomic mask of paper mache,
And die at the ripe age of 50 someday.
No matter the age on the pesky certificate of birth,
A nice half century I have spent on this earth.
So my teeth need no capping, no filling, no molding,
I will die in the past, always fifty and holding.

Last year I turned 51, this year 52,
When running fingers through my scalp,
I swear I smelled the mildew.
Life is streaming faster than my high speed Internet,
And age is just a number I would just as soon forget.
So if you must remember me and mark my natal day,
I beg you be judicious and look the other way.
Please address your cards and letters, I think it would be nifty,
To the dear delusional friend of mine who thinks he is still fifty.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED