FROM MY POETRY JOURNAL [R, 10-9-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Poems of an Old Man—FROM MY POETRY JOURNAL [R, 10-9-25]

Remember, it’s a journal. I don’t write it for others, so read at your own peril…

 

THE GIRLS OF SUMMER

The girls of summer

push balky walkers

along mean corridors

at Shady Pines

and wonder

where they left

their summer hats

 

VALLEY OF LOST POEMS

I have never been there

although it is where

many of my verses have gone

a sort of nursing home for poems

 Shady Phrases, or EYS

  Extra Years of Schmaltz

They need not cook for themselves

look in the thesaurus for better

words. There is a white-clad chef

for that, one with a pin

to roll out creases

in long vowel phrases

And a nurse to wipe their bottoms

where the ellipses collide…

with semicolons;

All in all, a rather wordly place

I receive, from time to time,

an invitation, to visit

I politely decline

 

YEARNING

Now it is only yearning

that remains

in the dust of hopes

and dreams and days of work

Perhaps the only meaning

was always in the yearning

 

THE MUSEUM OF UNDONE THINGS

I have much now that I must do

It is not frantic doing, though

If it is not done when I die

it shall take up its place

in the museum of undone things

where others can contemplate

the message of its completeness

 

YOU’RE AN OLD MAN NOW

[Sung to the tune of “He’s In the Jailhouse Now”]

You’re an old man now

Yes, you’re an old man now

God’s told me once or twice

You’re irrelevant so just be nice

You’re an old man now

 

THE NIGHT I HAD A NAME

Lying there in pain

hunger, uncertainty

I heard the nurses at their station

their nightly party commencing

as we in their care gave up for the day

The crackling of popcorn

The aroma of brownies baking

So nostalgic and yet so desperate

for one denied all food

for one marooned on a deserted island

They chatted about the patients

identifying them by room and malady

  The leg in 219

  The kidney in 246

how they were settling us

so that our call buttons would not interfere

as they shared their snacks and laughter

Then I heard them say that I was ready, too,

I did not feel ready, for the night

or for life

but instead of room number or disease

they called me by my name

And I began to heal

John Robert McFarland

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” E.B. White