Old Age

we’re all going to grow old

our knees will creak

our backs will ache

we’ll curse the youth and their newfangledness

their disrespect for our traditions

of disrespecting our elders

we’ll be cold

and the government will pay

for our heating and our food

and all of our teeth will fall out

so here’s a plan!

let’s become cyborgs

and replace our bones with superstrength alloy

reinforce our spines with cybertronic things

make our ears hear even the slightest of sounds

take out our muscles, and put in Apple’s versions

it’ll be expensive

but we won’t be in nursing homes,

at least.

and then,

if (when) it turns out we’re still

crotchety old souls with regrets and a grudge

even then, we’ll be free!

we’ll be fast and strong

and super like superman

then we’ll see

what those youths will do.

we’ll show them what’s what.

*

two datapoints do not a trend make.

Fire

Once we were a roaring fire

But now we are embers

Mostly spent,

Our last few sparks

Trying desperately to once more

Illuminate the void.

What if

We became lightbulbs?

*

the non-rhyming bug bit me again. i will try to stop this from becoming a trend.

He sits ten-headed

He sits ten-headed, 'pon a throne of gold

His sons would be god-killers, if gods could die

But though his hearth is warm, his heart grows cold

And he cannot stir it, however he may try

'Cross the sea a prince leaves home

A city bereft, a father betrayed

For fourteen years southerly to roam

To live and to die by the bow and the blade

In a forest of monkeys a king returns

Bloody from battle, he attacks his own

Entreaties for peace he scorns and he spurns

He cares only for glory and the throne

Near a sea of salt a bird does not fly

His eyes are the keenest, but his wings have been burnt

Though once he reached the sun upon high

Heavy was the cost of the lesson he learnt

A demoness killed, a bow broken down,

An old man stripped of centuries of power

Slippers that serve better than a crown

These are the things that herald the hour

All this he sees, 'pon a mighty throne of gold

Promised is he that his killer will come

From stock that is man, who cannot possibly be bold

War stirs again, and his heart begins to thrum