Slang-ing rocks

It's like
they were trying to keep up with the Jones'

Who are They? 
Like the Kardashians?

Okay, no. It's more like 
a bad case of the Me Too's!

The MeToo movement? Who
did what to you?!

No, no. It was all 
about the iWant-

Want what?

A Tesla, an Apple watch, a DNA Test, 
a viral video-

You do not.

No, of course not.
I live for the struggle. 

Your expressions
literally, make no sense to me-

Nonsense! I just hit the side of a barn
like two birds fleeing the hurled stone!

The Jones' barn?

Spot on. 




Image from Missouri History Museum, photographer unknown, dated circa 1901 in Public Domain.

Surname

Five-hundred generations since writing
and gathering, hunting and making
Families have failed
to evolve
at a decent pace.

My own stagnant genetic make-up,
imagination and desire
to do, to be, to come, to rise
higher
hovers-
inert for three generations.

An only child understood odds
and ends,
I had two children,
one son, one daughter,
two opportunities
to raise human beings
the right way.

I have left
all extended family
I have left a legacy
of language,
I have stoked creative fires,
I have drained all the juice,
I have praised
living self-lessly.

I have risen².


Painting by Paul Peel [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 

Mirror, mirror, how old am I?

How old am I

                       you asked me

as though I were here first

                       which I was

You were talking with your Grandma

                        enjoying and knowing she'll be

passing soon...

My cousin was born when I was a decade

                        or so already checked-in

She just passed Route 30,

                          her two young girls fine blonde hair

flying in the wind-will be snarled soon enough

                          stopping at the next town “Generation"

just passing thru...

A childhood friend who lost his mother

                            before I could find him again

noticed the 5 o'clock shadow of quitting time

                             resigned to put in some over-time

got a promotion of fast-track

                             merging lane, death draws closer 

but he blazes by....faster than 65

Last time I checked, I was wise

beyond my years

double checking lines, they cue my fears

the scale to weigh the time

gets heavier with one foot off

gauging the mass I now carry

until weightless without reflection.

Composed 4/12/15.

Image By Shymanski, Robert [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 1933, Hegeler Carus Mansion.