bombardments' offspring

this public park
behind my house
is home
to geese
soccer fields
sheriffs firing range

distant gunfire
resounds constantly
throughout my day

I have become immune
to its threat

still

when coupled
with sounds
of children's
high-pitched
squealing at goal

my heart
asks my mind
if we shouldn't call
911

rot

How ugly it must be
for them to smell
the death on your cheek
snuggled close to theirs
how disgusting to feel
your dissipated flesh
pressed close to firm
how awful for their tender hands
to touch your shriveled parts
to see you wrinkled up
against their smooth

deluded old man
you mistake their youth
as your own
they are not your mirror

time's stench encroaches rapidly

they can taste it in your kiss

In contemplation of suicide

It must be I want life
to go on
else why would I remain
to finish out
years that both young and old
view with such disdain

children see me as a relic
of a distant past
to which they hold no connection

mother mourned my lacks
as measured by
her generation

my body fails me

I feel time's clench
as life's cycles
fan old age's fires

I slowly turn to ash

I cannot find a good death
not the fanfare of the headline
not the agony of disease
not the languish of antiquity

so I am doomed to live forever

I will each sunrise into being
too cowardly to let go
of life
quite
yet