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THE OLD MAN SPEAKS
Fine eye, from the tower of the sky
The ageless friend who dines with me
My bush grows grey as time waves bye
My hips on stool, so wrecked they be.
A discourse please, weary traveler I ask.
Let's eat some words slippery for the youngs.
Those rats now race to a future on mask.
So blind and deaf, we roof our tongues.
But with minds at work we bear these tales
Mouthful wisdom being mocked by age
Bottles of wine, chatters, then hails
This life goes on like flips of page.
The deeds this hands and feet have done
The wits of pasts and feats like mast.
The glories long gone and stories we mourn.
This dawn of age behind has cast.
And yes! I do recall those times
When apes obey those ships at bay
Our dimes they took and gave us mimes
So poor at mind we walked their way.
Ha ha! do you recall the flag?
The song we sang and streets we ran?
With haste they tucked their rags in bag
And then this land we had to man.
The scenes of war, the horrors we saw
To forge today with tears not cheers
The turns of seats and reins of law
Those lots and guts we quench with beers.
The past is oil we eat with yams
We wash our hands and brush our bear.
We watch these youngs contend like rams
Their world they tar, they mar and tear.
So that is how today began
Oh friend that hears it's time to set
I hear you say we ran! we ran!
So sleep my friend, these youngs we let.
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Comments
Patricia
Thu, 2022-05-19 17:14
THE OLD MAN SPEAKS
I really loved this poem. The imagery was wonderful.I can't find anything wrong with it. It seemed so nostalgic. I wanted to read more. Keep on writing!
Pat
Geezer
Fri, 2022-05-20 08:35
I understand...
and like the theme of your poem.
There are however, some discrepancies in your tenses
and in a couple of instances, the mistake of thinking
that if a word looks like another, that they automatically rhyme.
I will point these out, along with some ways to make some lines a bit smoother.
Let's eat some words too slippery for the tongue
Those rats now race to a future [en mass]. [this is called near rhyme].
"So blind and deaf, we roof our tongues"
[There is no way, [to my mind] to express this thought any better.]
[these] hands and feet.
The wits of past and feats [are fast] meaning that they are set, rigid.
The stories we mourn and glories gone
And the guts we've quenched with beers
brush our [hair]
Delete the [s] from young
Please make these changes and let me see that you have not just said "OK"
and not learned the lessons. Thank you. ~ Geezer.
.
There is value to commenting and critique, tell us how you feel about our work.
This must be the place, 'cause there ain't no place like this place anywhere near this place.
Jackweb
Fri, 2022-05-20 15:11
I will always
...say it has a good beginning and ending. As Geezer had advised, remove the (s) in young.
I agree with Geezer's corrections on rhyme issues. He calls it: near rhyme. That is if a word look like another, that they automatically rhyme. No! Such rhymes also can be called visual rhyme or eye rhyme.
Example: Words like:
bough /though
come /home
move /love
Such words have no similarity! if you really want to catch up with these examples and corrections, just kindly pronounce these words and you will discover they lack similarity in sound production.
I hope this helps!
Beautiful piece you have penned!
"By virtue of creativity, my literary genre is poetry".
~Jackweb