Feel Good

I feel "bad" when I feel bad
my health and vigor virtue
though it isn't really it's
ideal parents lucky genes
mild excess sensible habits
like three prunes a day
ever vulnerable to chance
change age inevitable end
can I feel "good" even dying
mortality is not immoral

You Fall

you gradually get used to it
as it inexorably advances
nothing to be done but
follow along cheerfully
keep up as well as you can
watch your footing relax
trust your angel is ready
to catch you as you fall

Creeping Up

before reading writing
first you open the file
then words appear in it

what you have thought
takes the form of words
arranged in even lines

nine stanzas on decline
taking different forms
be ready for surprises

gradually creeping up
and suddenly revealed
years having elapsed

you know you're old
yet uttterly yourself
productive having fun

meanwhile older still
laugh at your limits
continue making art

eat healthy exercise
whatever your thing
keep right on doing

decline is underway
denial useless time
leaving you behind

read Pessoa Énard
Andric Stein write
everything you can

Fades Away

what you can't see exists less
vividly shifting boundaries
color-matched dimensionality
reduced to imagined memory

what you can't see clearly still
lives internally consistent not
quite explaining itself to you
you learn to live with it how
to navigate the blur starved
for specified information on
street names faces stories you
pick your way through slowly

what you can see is infinitely
dense referential glowing in
annual rings of transformation
you never knew so deeply as
now as it slowly fades away