The retirement village people
The retirement village people
What a display
We who once were Butterflies
Pinned against walls
Girdled in nostalgia
Wrapped up against the weather
Waiting for the clock to tick over
An end to this dry day
There is no rain but I am lost in the mud
Fighting over the high ground
There is no morality in this house
The old slowly rot from the inside out
Sitting in corners knitting like
Old maids of the French revolution
So many eat cake
It is a wonder they have any teeth left
Biting the hand that feeds them
When it all becomes too much of a joke
To continue
I wonder what passes for humour
When the hard of hearing miss the punch-line
So many residents in two-bedroom places
With expectations of visitors
Who never arrive
Watching television with subtitles
Missing the nuance of an ironic aside
In the rush to the bathroom
Tip a glass or two in this direction
Try not to spill the beans
When it can make such an awful mess
Of a Ben Sherman shirt
Once the sole preserve of ‘skins’
Back in the day
When two-tone was a music genre
Not a piece of jewellery
The volunteer is waiting to perform,
Clearing his throat
Of umms and ahhs
Reading for his supper
Stopping when a dozen double chins dip down
Onto ample bosoms
Pink tongues loll from open mouths
Perhaps they will all die
So many stories waiting to be told
None of them recorded
In talking books
I heard one young filly say
‘That old guy still has his looks’
It doesn’t raise my dander
I am not an old man on the inside
But it matters little when the tubes
Are as clogged as the pipes
In a badly run pub
Although my dad once said
Guinness tasted better if you didn’t
Clean the pipes at all
He still took a drink at 93
So he did know something
About the black stuff
Is it evil to want them all to leave
Just to be left alone
To drink a dram or two as I
Grizzle through the drizzle
Wrapped in swaddling
Waiting for a stranger
To tuck me in a manger
Whatever that may be
And touch my private place
Without a hint of intimacy
As fat tears pool together
In the troughs and folds
Of my weary face
All smiled out.