I ran around the kitchen, with a duster in my hand,
The family was coming and I wanted it looking grand.
You could see the footprints clearly, making patterns in the dust,
So, to keep them off my back – cleanliness was a must.

Since I’d been living here alone they sometimes check on me,
They’re doing me a favour, that much I could see.
Since my wife left for better care, that somehow, now she needed,
I also had outside to mind – and keep the garden weeded.

Often, I get lonely here, just me to make a noise,
The dog will sometimes bark a bit but I’ve not lost my poise.
The grass grows long and really thick, I have to use the mower,
Up and down and back and forth – I sometimes think I’m slower.

But I know lots of people who are not as well as me,
“Cos I can jog around the block, with the dog for company.
Now, I’m not as fit as I once was and I have to walk a bit,
And when that’s the best that I can do – I’ll make the best of it.

I’d like to have a woman here, to keep me on my toes.
Not too young and not too old, just middle-aged I s’pose.
perhaps I could just borrow one, if her love life isn’t finished,
She could show me all the tricks – till my love life’s diminished.

Then when I wake up and realise that I was only dreaming,
I wonder why my slow old brain hasn’t finished scheming.
If I’m alive at 105 and find I’m making plans,
I’ll have had a great life, not ever in strife ……

………….as good as any man’s.

Footnote:-

This work is published on behalf of Les Robertson.

Les is one of the “older” members of the Diamond Creek OM:NI group and, whilst being a prolific writer of poetry and other talents, decided that he would go skydiving at the age of 84! His next challenge is to go swimming in a cage with a pack of sharks – him in the cage and the sharks excluded – we hope.
He his ambition, he reckons, is to reach 105, at the very least least, and become a grumpy(ier) old man!

– Admin.