Geras (daimon of old age)
it’s true we hate the old
what we all will one day come to
if luckily we live so long
to sport liver spots and parched skin
that belie a life within
it was always the way
from the banished old wives
or those burned at stakes
to the ones we lock up and away
in modern bedlam
we hate them so that we
hire helpers who’ll do the shitty
work we cannot face the feces
the wrecked bodies and
worse the minds
of doctors, rocket scientists
clerks and dentists, mothers, fathers
gone to rot and ruin
in case our brain is next
it’s all in the family
geriatrics do not gentrify
old age is a great leveler
like his good friend death
we can pretend as long as we wish
with creams and surgery
still here comes the old geezer creeping
the old crone cackling
he can’t get it up
she can’t get it on
and old age is not for sissies
© 2016 Gail Sidonie Sobat
