You’re Not Old
Oh? You dispute me, do you,
when I make a passing mention
of some effect old age
has had on me in some context,
with a dismissive, scolding,
smirky-faced, sing-songy,
‘Oh, you’re not old!’
And then you act
surprised and hurt
when instead of grovelling with
gratitude
at your condescending
there-there,
as if I were a child afraid of
a bogeyman,
or kvelling at your supposed
flattery,
I snarl in response that
(in addition to being an
affront
to the clear, accurate use of
language)
your cheery contradiction
is a fatuous, insulting,
disrespectful
thing to say.
Really! Accusing me
of being as stupid and naïve
and gormless
as I was sixty or fifty or even
forty years ago!
I mean, shit!
The secret to staying young
(which means to remain
unchanging)
over the course of the decades
is clearly to learn and think
and grow
as little as possible,
to restrict how much we
experience,
and to gain as little as we can
from what experiences we can’t avoid.
Experience ages a person,
y’know,
particularly if that person has
a mind.
An Obvious
Observation
The way in which
the peculiar direction
our capitalist system
has developed
into the cause
of suicide epidemics
by promising
wondrous happiness
that it can never deliver
is reminiscent of
pornography:
it gets it up
without getting it off.
Mary
Ellen’s Dad
And it really all seems so very
sad
to realise that Mary Ellen’s
dad
still believes that he
can make things one day be
the way they once were only in
his visions.
The
Future
The Future Lies Ahead!
Rather like the present,
which is dominated by lies right now,
or the past,
when people lied all the time.
What else should you expect?
I mean, really!
Oh I do like these! But I relate especially to the first - that fatuous "You're not old" shit that makes me so cross! "Are you saying I'm childish?" I sometimes ask. But mostly these days I just turn away, and where possible, leave the vicinity. Occasionally, when trapped, I start to list all the small ugly bodily disintegrations and decaying I experience that prove my ageing - they usually blanch and change the subject.
ReplyDelete'Okay, since according to you I'm not an old man with geriatric medical problems, I'm a young man with geriatric medical problems.' (My latest reposte to such unconsciously [or subconsciously] insulting fatuity.)
ReplyDeleteHello, sir. Might I ask if you are the same Richard Selinkoff that wrote a couple of scripts by the names of "Stuffed Chops (Letter from the Tar Pits)" and another called "All the Same and Not Only Toronto Blues".
ReplyDeleteI've recently purchased copies of these works and would like to ask a couple of questions about these specific copies I've come to obtain and the story surrounding them.