Once one crosses the forbidden line on the wrong side of sixty.
Not to venture further into the next arithmetical digit.
There begins the journey to another world, even where the angels fear to tread.
All on a sudden one comes under uncountable whammies.

A jinxed land you stray into, full of a craggy jagged reef.
Razor sharp rocks you feel at every step and bleed.
Another shell shock  I devalued you are as a condemned jalopy.
Looks of all you love, speak a strange lingo: you get a creep.

It is anything but the old warm vibes of those years golden.,
Rather an overdose of pity and compassion over-laid with mushy emotion.
A good enough gesture to an infirm or a ******* or one in dotage.
A man past his prime and relevance like a mast broken of a boat sunken.

Written off the priority roster, stowed in a corner,
Dusted, sprayed and showcased as a piece of curio rare.
mothballed with care in medicine on rationed air.
Lest unseen germs of umpteen infections catch them unaware.

An appendage fit to be dumped in old age home.
A social cure-all, as they say, concerned so unwillingly,
A haven as safe as God’s Elysium for progenitors.
To be lionized as the epitome of pride and wisdom.

So adored they are but shunned cannily by every social connection.
A persona-non-grata in all spheres save for gratuitous complimentary doles.
Being in the jinxed circle of seventy is the sin only committed.
A few blessed ones manage to wiggle into the favoured positions.

A few ministerial ballasts, a lottery coup, or a few sine cure slots, a safety net of power & pelf.
The rest for a wallow in the morass of delusive expectations.
Oodles of stale dry sympathy, deceptive tears and bogus bonhomie.
Old raw sores get abraised-the world turns deaf.
……….
It’s a poetry by late Mr S M Ghosh, my late father
An educationist, history teacher and retired principal of  Central Schools,  in India.

To grow old is not to grow wise, but to grow wise one must grow old.

Today, I am falling.
I don’t know where I am going to land
Or how I started falling in the first place
But I can feel my heart smashing against the ground
Can feel rocks landing on my lungs
I think it was a landslide.
A storm of the false assumptions my brain makes
Forcing me off of my mountainous high
Some people say seasonal depression happens in the winter
I think mine occurs during the hotter times
When things stay still and dry
But that one rainstorm can cause an entire mountain to slide
Hands no longer moving on my school papers
No longer babbling to teachers who see me as one of the hundreds of faces
What do you do when you're only memorable cause of your tragic backstory?
How do I become something more than a tale of depression?
How do I stop falling?

Today, I realized that I can never seem to stop my fall
Try and grab on to the cliff or the rocks
But they all slide with me.
We fall down together
Fading under heaps of mud that ***** our visions of life
Becoming nothing more than another lost fossil.
Bones under so much pressure we become fuel for successful people.
Why can’t I be the successful person?

Today, I wondered if there’s even a point in trying to stop the fall
Every mountain I conquer collapses anyways.
Becomes heaps of rocks and rubble for colonists to make skyscrapers on
My methods of success are outdated
For even the biggest mountains have been conquered before
I am nothing more than an unidentifiable face
That will be lost to the world shortly after her demise
Only remembered for her tragic backstory and a too short life.
They say in your senior year you should feel on top of the world
But I have yet to climb to that overhyped sensation

Instead, I am falling.

"...and with this, a new day begins.."
this speech i have been dreading
the day senior year ends
the day i leave my best friends
and start fresh again

next year we'll splatter
all across the country
only for some of us to meet again
when two of our high school friends wed

my boyfriend and i had to break up today
for i am traveling far far away
he has decided to stay here
in this town which is very dear

thinking these thoughts
water comes to my eyes
an ocean of tears
as i look at my peers

each one bringing up a bittersweet moment
some i will miss
some i will dismis from my mind
only to one day wish again
that i could be a freshman
and repeat it all over again

oh what i would give
senior year, i wish i could relive

I’m waddling around with wattles.
Nothing in a bottle will change that.
Not buying a better looking hat
Or a brighter, tighter shirt.
My childhood left in the dirt,
I’m an old man! I do what I can
To not look like a wino under a bridge;
A smidge of aftershave so I don’t stink
And people don’t think I’m decaying.

What I’m saying is, I’m getting old.
Graying smudges among the gold.
This is me. This is what I see daily
When I glance gaily into my mirror
Expecting the guy as young as I feel.
He isn’t real. An old guy sneaked in
Again, and I wish I hadn’t peeked.
Oh well, this isn’t really hell.
I have never thought I was hot,
One of those handsome lads that had
Everyone’s heads turning for them.

I had dim hope there for a while
But, no matter how much I smile
Nothing wins like smooth skin
Broad shoulders and big pecs.
I mean, I was not a wreck, but not
As I said, even a little bit hot.
Oh well, I got what I got, true?
Can I or you ever defeat genetics?
Like father like son, and mother,
Creates another generation of us;
Nice guys and gals, but plain,
And this old man is what remains.

a lot can happen in a year, maybe four;
a lot can happen in an hour, maybe more.

talking is fine, but can you take on the risk?
now, i’m not just talking about an ordinary task.
whether it be a lifetime of love, the love of your life,
or one particularly special night,
it all comes down to this:
a right
of passage, a race.

who’s better?

he’s taller, but he has the nice hair;
she’s blonder, while she tries not to care.
he can’t dance, and he won’t try;
she won’t admit to the tear in her eye.
he knows what he wants, and he knows nothing;
she tries to distinguish a little bit of everything.

stop it.

there’s no winning the race yet because his shoe is untied;
she can’t stand and go face that finish line.
he tripped and fell, but so did she;
the other guy ran, only to fall to his knees.
stop panting and collect yourself- just breathe.

a lifetime led to four years, and four years to that day;
she ran and chased too many check points along the way.
afraid of being alone, she asked too many times;
afraid of dancing alone, she asked, but was still denied.
him, him, him, him, he who was possibly that sacred hymn:
one he wondered impatiently,
another he pursued contradictingly,
another he fell flawlessly;
however, no he was to be lawfully,
but only so rightfully.

this is no lifetime, but only
one evening not meant to be lonely.
the only way to win is to face them directly in the eye
and have every question answered. why?
because this is that special night,
senior year, and you have the right.

step back, step up, have courage, calm down.
ASK her to a quaint place in town,
but before she even knows you’re listening,
just as both your hearts are quickening,
surprise HER with that special something.
if she knows, you may think you blew it,
when really, this whole time, she probably knew it.
it won’t be easy, but if it comes from the heart,
there’s the finish line. all you’ve got TO do is start…

ya know, sometimes Poems Reveal Oblivious Messages...

I came here and hoped
to find something meaningful.
I did and I didn't.
Even if I didn't find my life
I did knew something divine
surrounded my mind.
All of things, all of lives
provoked me to see
how beautiful days had been.

I sang to you, my son, until I ran out of breath
And sang to you again as I gave you to death.
I've been stuck in house arrest
Because I've given you to death.
I declare my degree in your grief
But I sing to you...
"I-I-I have never lo-o-oved someone,
the wa-ay I love you-u-u"

A lament for your bending brain descent
With energy so pure, unsure and in the moment
With disorient movement on legs bent
Or were they wings?
It was hard to tell on the descent.

Yet, something eternal was created
At your birth and at your death
Your heart was too big for your chest
We wept together over it,
Over your death,
As there was no preparation for the separation
Your rotation of cognation
Gives formation to an ideation if...
You... You ever were
Or I... I ever was?

Disposessed words in the world we'd imagined
Obtained and ingrained love in our intestines
Our black will eventually turn to grey
The grey will one day go away
Just as blood dries and becomes sparks
It parks inside eyes to become stars
And the love we lasted long enough to receive
Becomes songs in energy I sing
From my throat
From my hand to your coat, I bathe you
I soak you with my love... a baptismal
     ... like never before and ...
As you drown under, you wonder
If you... You ever were
Or I... I ever was.