What of it now old man?

What of it now old man?

Reflections can lie

Unless they are surprises

Catching the unwary, ill-prepared.

Forgetting is an art form,

Misunderstood,

It is perfected by the ageing, to disremember

All but an essential guide to living

A comfortable read

Until too many of the pages are torn,

Whole chapters scattered,

A life unglued.

Old prints fade like Polaroids

Minds are made up of half-truths

Personalities formed by default

As unwelcome wrinkles are smoothed

Moisturised with Polyfilla,

The five stages of ageing

Should never be ignored.

Nobody sets out to forget

Anything other than the pain,

It hovers over recollection

Like a vulture

Waiting for death to claim its prize.

The fear of the talons

The hook of the beak

Brings a shudder to the nearly dead

Re-animating a carcass

Nobody wants to be torn,

Shorn of their dignity.

Babies look cute in nappies

Skinny old men

With blood spots and incontinence

Are anathema

To be avoided,

The brightness of life gradually eroded

By short-sightedness

And an absence of proximity.

The space between bodies grows wider

As we become entrenched

In old ways

Embattled by exposure

To the truth of things

History, something of a dream

When the past has happened

To somebody else.

There is pain in the confrontation

Of misdemeanours

Repentance is never easy

Even when acceptance

Creates a space for understanding

There is a chasm between self-knowledge

And realism,

Look in the mirror

That is you,

The skeleton in the corner

All alone.