Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts

Musings on Time

The time it slips, it slips away.
Handfuls of sand through fingers greying and shrinking inside their skins, knuckles gnarled and buckled through a practical lifetime's abuse.
Decades come and go so slow by day, so fast by year. You blink and find yourself awakening here. So far from then on paper and so vividly recent in memory. 
When understood and appreciated fully they lack that fog of nostalgia by which comforting versions of events are often obscured. Reassuringly, this means pain is also racing in retrograde, flying us away from it in bated breath taken at treacle-light speed.
My knees are mechanical now - gristly grinding each gesture in echoing growls. My barometric blood gives me warnings through the aches of coming rains.
I recognise my lifetimes by the shade of my hair in photographs, my dress size from outfits of mismatched clothes donated by long lost friends. Some I miss, some I am relieved to have had riddance, but all I cherish.
Is this aging?
It certainly feels like growth.

The Ballad of Bob and Mary

***TO BE READ IN A BROAD NORTHERN ENGLISH ACCENT***

Bob and Mary live in a semi.
They spend most every evening watching repeats on the telly.
Burying their heads in digital sand.
Bob sups his beer, thinks ‘Aint life grand’.
He belches, reveling in its echo, tone and strength
then half-heartedly apologises, to save the argument.
Mary is repulsed but merely gives a tut.
It’s not she doesn’t care, quite the opposite but
after all these years of chastising and nagging
her enthusiasm for home improvement is flagging.

Once Mary would have been described a dolly bird.
Now she is just bird-like with a faintly tinted perm.
She’s been smoking menthol superkings sine she turned 21.
They still make her feel sophisticated, though she won’t admit that to anyone.
It hasn’t been a bad life and she’s not one to complain,
but she thinks she’d do it differently if she had her time again.
She liked to have been an air hostess and travelled all over the world
or worked on one of them cruise ships, or been one of Pan’s People’s girls.
Just something a little more glamorous and less like egg and chips.
She gives poor Bob a sideways look and purses coral stained lips.

They’re a staple in their local. Bob drinks stout.
Mary likes a babycham and brandy when she’s out.
Bob’s not fond of Mary’s friends. He hates their gossiping ways.
Mary whispers too softly. He misses half the things she says.
At half past ten, habitually they totter up the road.
Arm in arm, step in step, it’s not a long trip home.
“Bob” says Mary, “do you ever wonder if there’s more than this?”
“Mary” Bob says, “I dearly love you, but you’re pissed.
When you’ve had more than three you know you get all philosophical-like
I’ve told you before about your limits, it’s too much at my time of life.”
He straightened his cap and Mary just sighed
then she looked up and saw how soft were his eyes.
“I know love” she said “and you’ve given me plenty
but sometimes I feel all used up and empty”.
“Oh, duck! We’ve had such good times, remember when we were young?
All those trips to the seaside, those summers full of sun?
Annual foreign holidays to the Costa this and that,
strolling, licking ice cream in a kiss me quick hat.
It’s only right you’re tired when you’ve lived as much as us.
That’s why they give us pensioners free rides on the bus”.

She squeezed his hand and sadly smiled.
They walked in silence a little while.
Then, as they reached their little front gate
Bob’s caught Mary’s arm and said “Wait.”
“What?” said Mary startled, spun into Bob’s waiting palms
“While there’s moonlight, we’ve no music but we’ve love and romance,
haven’t we darling?”
Mary’s heart flew like a flock of starlings.
As she lifted her arms Mary was glad
that night she’d remembered to wear her Tena pad.
She murmured “Let’s dance” and Bob stepped a tango
then screwed up his face and yelled “Ee! Me lumbago!”
Mary cried “Bob! You poor old thing!
Let me give you a hand. Do you want me to ring
for the doctor?” “No, no,” he said
“the best medicine for me will be us in bed”.
“Oh, give over” she playfully teased
“between your back and my dodgy knees
we’ll be lucky to make it up the stairs.
Thank god the hot water bottles are already prepared.”

She helped Bob to bed and fetched him his pills.
Unplugged the cords to save on the bills.
Locked all the doors and turned off the lights.
Got into bed and they kissed goodnight.
In well practiced harmony they both removed their teeth
put them into one glass and pushed it out of reach.
They snuggled into decades long impressions of their love
on a mattress worn equally below as above.
As Mary’s dreams encroached she saw flashes of her life
From after and before she became a mam and wife.
A joyful tear slid down her nose
and she reached her cold feet towards Bob’s warm toes.
“Bob, why don’t we take the grandkids out?
Down to the pier and tell them all the stories about
when you and me was courting
and the lido? and your car?
And that bar that you fought in?
Let’s see how they are.”
Bob just grunted but Mary didn’t mind.
She knew her face was laughter-lined.
For it hadn’t been a bad life, and she’s not one to complain
and she wouldn’t really do it differently

if she had her time again. 

The Misty-Eyed Memoirs of Comic Sans

We all do things for money
When we’re naïve and young.
They told me I’d regret it.
They said the time would come
When I’d want to do something serious,
Wouldn't want to be bubbles and fun.
But I played to young boys magazines
And all their advice I shunned.

You see me now in knock off bins
And bootlegs DVDs.
I’m never on embossed invites,
But flyers for wannabes.
Not known for my straight talking style
But for my curves that please.
The suggestion is that of a good time –
One for which there isn't a fee.

The boys queue up to read Her now.
Just watch her rising star.
Taller, thinner, simpler than me.
I’m sure that she’ll go far.
I feel I should have warned her
Out the goodness of my heart
That the life of a typecast typeface

Will drive you to the bar.


(co-written by Tenby. Copyright and ownership asserted)