Hayflick

A Poem by Davidgeo

The plant in the picture is a Judean Date Palm sprouted from a roughly 2,000 year old seed found preserved in one of King Herod's temple ruins. It's been extinct since about 300 AD.... now it's not.

hayflick limits

call it, cell division restrictions

with heavy implications

on age limit correlations

old and decrepit

one day your fingers will become brittle sticks

wrapped inconsistently in thin wrinkly papers

approaching uselessness

every page gets turned slower

understood less and less often

as everything begins to be forgotten

watch out now

here comes genomic instability

aka the road to an old death

or a cancerous death

or a radiation death

maybe a chemical death

or from sharp metal or heavy stone

perhaps from the claws

or teeth

of another clever beast

(an inaudible noise)

whatever's clever, it's all f*****g death

when it starts...

it progresses (pray for quickness)

please dear

have a little neurodegeneration

with that

it won't matter, you'll forget

and s**t your pants

eventually

maybe she's born with it

maybe it's recombinational DNA repair error

either way we're all on our own way into cyclic deficiencies of repair

that night shift mr. fix it staff

the stupid intern who makes the copies

gets the coffee

eventually, the manager hires his nephew

and outsources the night shift to mental patients

things then start to unravel

as all things fall apart

sometimes it's exogeny

other times from within

endogenous like

anyway, it's all "whatever"

("it's not a tuma!")

these things that are eventual, tend to be tragic

universally so

the upper limit to individual "forever's"

this could be law

when that which you cannot see stops doing what you cannot believe

you tend to die

and everything has it's time to die

everyone of us becomes due in time

to become one spectacle of a tragedy

or another

like you've never seen before

like you would never believe

until it happens to you...

when you go,

when you hear,

ha... that,

(inaudible sound)

© 2016 Davidgeo

Author's Note

The plant's name is Methuselah

My Review

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Reviews

D Connolly

I thought this was very clever and insightful.

Posted 7 Years Ago

1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

The Lost Poetry Files

Not sure if you do have scientific background, but loved reading the science bits, amazing!!
How it's linked to life and the truth of it!

Posted 8 Years Ago

1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

8 Years Ago

I truly am a w***e for a good science metaphor...

8 Years Ago

Thanks for reading my pile of words by the way...

anupriya

wow its amazing I loved it please read my book the haunted house and review it its very small please I will be glad if u do so and accecpt my friend request and again I would say ur poem is awesome I loved it it was very very interesting it was the best poem I have ever red so please read my 3 chapters I will be so glad if u do u please please
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................i loved it