WHEN I'M OLD AND IN MY LIZARD SKIN

WHEN I'M OLD AND IN MY LIZARD SKIN

When I'm old and in my lizard skin,
I will ponder down each road I've been,
And likely I'll find something to lament about them all,
When i'm old and oh so wrinkly,
Like a crispy leaf in fall.

When I'm old and in my Sunday tweeds,
Wherein perhaps they'll bury me,
I'll ponder heaven and I'll ponder hell 
But alas I'll never know,
Where or in whose company
I'll be when it's time to go.

Will it be a fall from an elevator,
Or the last meal of some alligator,
To finish off my stay on earth?
Or a bumbling fall backwards down the stairs,
With a knot on the head for the angels to nurse.
Will the Parkinson's get me, or some rare kind of cancer?
I breathlessly wait in the wings for an answer.
Will the lungs go first or will I be fainthearted,
Or will this slow brain death finish what it started?

And will you be there in your botox and your perfect sparkling teeth,
Still thin as a skeleton, your hair a bedazzling wreath?
A sleeping companion still to this man encased in tin?
Or will my sleep disorder make me too cantankerous by then?

All fair questions awaiting reply,
I'll cock my head with an ear to the sky,
Will the depression meds give up the ghost
And leave me more depressed than most
With a bent toward suicide?
Right now at this idea I snort,
But I save it as a last resort.
When denied too long of earthly pleasures,
One tends to cling to desperate measures.

Though i love this life, i have to admit
At times it's a river just waiting to crest,
I'd love at times to take my rest,
In the river of forgetfulness.
Strike down the halls of memory,
Burn them beyond recognition.
By then i should be old enough to trust my intuition.
And before my dusty soul has flown,
To rely on just my wits alone.

It is all these things I wonder,
It is these strange things I ponder.
I have regrets which I cannot change,
Some things I'd like to rearrange,
Down all these roads I've been,
I'll likely die still pondering them,
When I'm old and in my lizard skin.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2014
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED