Old Poets

Too many of the old poets
have hung around too long,
famed or infamous, they persist
while others have gone unsung
into the no-good night.

Oh, speaking for myself,
I have been jagged in my verse.
I have been ragged in it, possessed
of half-rhyme and little metre,
lost for words too much of the time.

Then, I have grown old with it,
with the scurf of ideas embedded
in my beard like whiskered sawdust.

Now I have come to know
there are old poets and old poets:
some aged in their scribbling,
some scribbling in their old age.

© BH, 2024

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Getting long in the tooth myself. Striving to get some of this stuff out in the world can seem like a slog. I wonder if it's because the charismatic bards who rise in their youthful glory maunder on once they're on the stage. Safe bets. It must be good still, huh?

However, we old and grizzled wannabes have been maundering forever. So long that nothing we can say now will be more than background noise. Poetic muzak. Hiss on the tape.

We do it just the same.