Which animals are they that die of starvation
through losing their teeth in old age?
I could be one in the same situation
but thank goodnesst I like porridge.

Too old

I think I'm now too old to fall in love
if love requires infatuation.
Though annual summer flowerings of
luscious ladies stimulate desire,
the young are rightly out of reach for me.
Sad widower, the most I can aspire
to are drooping, faded, sad-also blooms
that lack the dewful beauty to inspire
obsession. And if occasionally
some new attraction worms under my skin,
I'm immunised by past infections:
antibodies swim patrol in my thin
blood to guard against stupidity
(which still persists no matter how I try).
Though resignation means rejection's
trivial, self-delusion inflates vanity
and I lack anyone to puncture my
pretentiousness. What I really need
is my late wife back though I sometimes start
to think that might not actually happen. So
can I again achieve the mutual
support and constant companionship
built up through forty years of partnership ?
Love is not a quagmire one falls into
or a perfumed bath but a pyramid
constructed pebble on brick on slab of rock.
And little time is left since our creation
sank into the chasm of her death.
A future of waning powers, both physical
and mental, seems to make all hope recede.
What sensible woman ignores the realisation
that she'll have to care for an invalid ?
I'm now too old to actually be loved.

Why do you worry where you'll be
after death for eternity ?
You've never bothered to trouble mirth
with where you were before your birth.

(some more poems in my travelogue 'SAO' on Kindle)