Old Man

5 – APR – 2007

Sprung-up here, burgeoned there.
How could he grow those everywhere?
Hanging out o’ nose, sprouting out o’ ears:
They hadn’t been cut for a hundred years!
It wasn’t fair; he was full of hair,
Looking a fur-ball, yon in the chair.
Yet the ‘God of Irony’ has got to be heralded,
Fashioned he inordinate hair, yet he got balded!

Look at that bush: they said its beard,
None in my life have I seen so weird.
Such a mustache! It covered his mouth,
Making his looks even more uncouth.
Shaking hands, rickety feet.
All mere skin and bones: no meat!

Of all his regiment of Thirty-two,
None was steadfast: not one stood true.
They took their leave; none was left:
Rendering the tongue solitary and bereft.
How could she spell now, without her support?
So tongue made with them gums a new rapport.
Those gums there, then took charge,
Replacing them teeth by and large.

Those eyes had dimmed beyond repair:
Having had lost every purpose to flare.
Hearing got low, aye, yet it had been kind,
Unlike taste and smell, it never resigned!
That smell had given up long ago,
Was evident when taste started to forgo.
Sense of touch never deserted as such.
Wrinkled and festered but, it seldom helped much

We addressed him as “old-bat”, made a lot of fun,
Teasing him and leering, then bounding off and run.
Yet never cursed he, not once did he flay.
For like us rogues, enjoyed he the regular play!
He became nostalgic, just looking at us cheer:
Thinking of olden times when he too was held dear.

One young fiend questioned him with bitter fie,
“What for do you live old-bat, why don’t thee die?”
He answered then, eying other coldly,
“I have lived every stage of my life boldly.
And in these last days of mine, I do live with pride.”
In those few words but, his tears he couldn’t hide.
Thence for a few months he lived on, ill at ease.
Sadly today, with life, he has settled his lease.