When young the future is infinite,

the space beyond the horizon,

but in time a faint mist forms,

thickening to a dark cloud

like a wild animal silently,

slowly padding toward you.

Tweets 8

Dying might be difficult

but death is nothing

SAVANNAH

None too likely to be a star

but decorative way above par

and always ready to serve you a jar -

beauties behind the bar.

Some media play upon our fears

of illness, cancer, heart disease,

but it isn't play at all to them -

it's business, if you please !

POP SONG LYRICS

The words young girls so long to hear

but real-life boys so rarely say.

ILLOGICAL

If some-one is trying to murder me,

I am justified in killing him.

But if he does actually kill me,

he's then protected from being executed.

I really wish I could sleep on my back

but it's one ability I somehow lack.

No matter how long I've sometimes tried

I always end up turning on my side.

I don't like young attention seekers,

thinking they shouldn't be so vain

but have to admit that when they're older

they could be stars that entertain.

She wasn't at all attractive

but her attention massaged my ego.

 

Birdsong

I like to hear the cheep of a sparrow,

the cheerful trill of a robin.

I enjoy the warble of a blackbird,

the echo of a songthrush.

I now miss the twitter of a skylark

and I've never heard a nightingale.

But it's all just pleasant British birdsong,

less than human musical feats,

and exaggeration is surely wrong

as done by Shelley and Keats.

A different sort of war

This is not Ukraine, the Yemen, World War Three

but nonetheless millions fighting for their lives.

Not really some conventional struggle to be free

but a war of attrition fought by husbands and wives.

No advances, just rearguard action to retain territory

with forces continually degraded by the enemy.

Eventual defeat is certain; useless to rage.

This is the war that no-one wins - old age.

Hung higher than any other works of art

and on display in daylight every day

they calmly soothe and lift the troubled heart

but often are ignored by busy crowds -

the amazing everchanging artwork of the clouds.

 Some papers try to get our attention

with headlines addressing our worries

about our ageing health that mention

all kinds of scary medical flurries

of news about the latest findings

that play upon our fears for the future:

arthritis, heart attacks, dementia

and the dreaded Big C - cancer.

So pity the harrassed poor sub-editor

who has to come up with something catchy

to grab the interest of the reader

and please a boss who's probably tetchy.

One day the headline to cap them all

I'm sure will happen by and by

in letters several inches tall -

'EVERYONE'S  GOING  TO  DIE'

Heaven was a very tempting idea

to raise the dead in some sort of form.

Hell was invented to instill fear

and make the living conform.