Robert Demaree- Two Poems

ON TURNING 76

We have entered into the years

Of inadaptability,

When only one brand of a thing will do:

Large globs of supermarket shaving gel

Drip wastefully, inadequately

Into the white faux-marble sink,

A thousand watts of light

Sparkling in our well mirrored

Master bath at Golden Pines.

Neurotic habits to hasten sleep,

Deleting the departed from the e-mail list.

They say that 70 is the new 60, or even 50,

We try to walk every day.

We have given up parallel parking,

Certain kinds of spicy food.

(On the way to the card shop.

I listen to an old CD,

A favorite singer from the ’70s

Now hidden away in Memory Care.

The sympathy section is expanded, I see:

Special cards for loss of

Spouse, uncle, cat,

Mother after a long illness.)

Burgundy blotches—broken capillaries—

Appear on your forearm

Without provocation.

They seem to vanish on their own,

Although I note that later on

This is not the case.    

MANIFESTO

The a cappella group had sung

“Teach your children well…”

And we were taken back

To those wistful years

Whose optimism proved

Unfounded.

Newlyweds, we sat in her parents’ den

Watching the President and Congress

Sing “We Shall Overcome.”

Polemics make poor poems,

So I will ask only this:

Not What’s in your wallet,

But How did we get from there

To here?”

Robert Demaree is the author of three book-length collections of poems, including After Labor Day, published in April 2014 by Beech River Books.  In 2013 his poems received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the  Burlington Writers Club He is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, where he lives four months of the year. He has had over 650 poems published or accepted by 150 periodicals. For further information see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com