DECREPITUDE

 DECREPITUDE

Tsk, tsk, you're a fall risk,

So hang your head down low;

Try to hold onto the railings,

Steady as you go.

Your legs like painful candlesticks,

Burnt down to their precious wicks.

Use the walker to keep steady,

Have a wheelchair at the ready.

Lest you fall and cause an awful wound,

Blood spurting from your head,

Better yet to hedge your bets

And hibernate in bed.

Oh drat, it should be old hat,

The rigidity and the limp,

22 years with this disease,

Your life has kindly spent.

Old age may have its pulchritude,

Its lessons for the soul, 

But allow me a bit of latitude.

While I adjust my attitude,

To one that shows more gratitude,

For the years have taken toll.

Tsk, tsk,

Is that your breakfast,

That's fallen in your lap.

Your arms wooden and rigid,

You fear that they could snap.

So spill at breakfast, spill at snack time,

Spill, spill, spill,

Bonus points if you spill at dinner,

It lends a certain thrill.

Time was you could charm a crowd with a gift for fiery speech,

Now you humbly mumble,

And fall into the breach.

Tsk, tsk, your walk was brisk,

But now it's slowed to just a crawl.

Medicine's now hit or miss,

Your back's against a wall.

And perhaps it's your own ineptitude,

That's fostered this decrepitude,

Who can really say?

But limp into the fading sun,

And live to fight another day.

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2023

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ACES IN THE HOLE

 ACES IN THE HOLE

Oh, no, I do not stand so well.

And walking is the pits,

Any movement of any kind,

Gives my partner fits,

But I alas have a very hard head

And an infinitely spirited soul,

Those attributes they just may be

My aces in the hole.

When death it hovers 'round me,

Preparing to snatch me away.

I laugh loudly at it nastily,

Keeping it at bay.

When monsters have me at their whim,

Try to tear me limb from limb.

I bare my hard head and my spirited soul,

The attributes that just might be my aces in the hole.

Anyone can see, it's a hard knock life for me.

I am not speaking figuratively,

Oh no, I'm speaking literally,

It happens not to feel so well,

With equilibrium shot to hell.

Thank goodness I have attributes that fit me to a T.

And make it ten times easier to be the man called me.

God gave me two attributes to compensate for the balance he stole,

A ridiculously hard head and an awesomely spirited soul.

And those two things they just might be my aces in the hole.

Oh no, I do not walk so well,

My friends the walker and the crutch,

A wheelchair may be really swell,

An idea I do not care for much.

I may be quite the stumblebum.

But at least I'm walking free,

And that, my friends, at least for now,

Is good enough for me.

I have faith in my hard little head,

And a highly spirited soul

The attributes that just might be my aces in the hole.

Oh, no, I do not speak so well,

Though speech it used to be my thing,

My vocal skills have flown away,

Like a singing bird on wing.

You might ask yourself how do I cope,

With a slow and gradual loss of hope.

I do not choose to think that way,

That's how I keep the blues at bay.

I just rely on my hard little head

Plus a highly spirited soul,

The attributes that just may be my aces in the hole.

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2022

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

IN A BIT OF A FUNK

IN A BIT OF A FUNK

Excuse me, for I’m in a bit of a funk,
Like a road kill squirrel or unfortunate skunk.
But unlike that skunk in his black and his white,
I cannot go quickly into the night.

Excuse me, for I’m in a bit of a funk,
Pardon me, pardon me, please,
Unlike the brass knuckled city punk,
The down and out looter, the out and out drunk,
I am the proud owner of a designer disease,
A black ship sailing on pirate seas.
The reckless wanton disregard,
It opens its jaws and crushes me hard,
Like a garbage truck treats random junk,
Pardon me, for I’m in a bit of a funk.

Excuse me, for I’m just a little bit dizzy.
Forgive me my tantrum and pardon my tizzy.
Up to my eyeballs in hoc to the docs,
Lining my closets with inflatable bills,
Stripped to the bone with no marketable skills,
Oh how my battleship is sunk,
Here in my pivotal, pitiful funk.

Excuse me, for I’m in a bit of a jam,
Nobody knows or cares who I am,
Not in the least bit handsome or glam.
If only I were a Cosmo or a Playgirl hunk,
Why I could sure make enough by posing in the buff
With tasteful photographs of my junk,
In cool strategic places.

A film career could be my calling,
if I could stop this random falling.
For a man upon his feet unsure, can be costly to insure,
Just go and ask my carrier.
It’s plain to see that woe is me,
Everywhere I turn’s a barrier.

Excuse me, for I’m in a bit of a funk,
A cheapo muffler or carburetor
And its lonely pricey clunk.
Get me to a nunnery soon
Or the monastic ways of a penniless monk.
And turn my tantrum and my tizzy
Into a Gregorian chant.
Give me three square meals a day,
Relieve me of my tiresome rant.

Or maybe an ugly man like me
Would fare much better on the streets,
A twisted Johnny Rotten or Sid Vicious wannabe.
Sucking dry Society’s mammoth welfare teets.
With a clothespin clamping shut my nose
And crowding out the stench,
Some wild and wanton woman
I will take for my wonderful wench,
Accepting all offers and draining the coffers,
Once more in the game, no longer benched.

Excuse me, for I’m in a bit of a funk,
Envying the roadside squirrel, the flat as a pancake skunk.
Too young to die, too old to pimp, too cursed to even care.
Alone in this wreckage, this ship that has sunk,
This tainted Titanic beyond all repair.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED