Old

I'm getting old and sore and creaky, verily I am;
My joints are in rebellion, my vitality's on the lam;
I've fought decrepitude with drugs, with exercise and diet,
But nothing squelches age for long--it swells when things get quiet.
At night I hear the bloodflow thrum within my pillowed head,
A faraway, steam-driven ram that pounds its piles to bed.
It courses past my inner ear, a boxcar train unending,
Yet should it end, then too this life, no future verses pending.
I'm aping Ilyich, that mope, a model moody man
Whose sulkiness inspires me to hatch a master plan:
To make a fuss, to grouse and gripe to deathbed priests, replying
That heaven does not compensate the mortal pain of dying.
To go out with a peaceful sigh you'd think would spare the mourners,
Who otherwise must suffer like some lazarettoed foreigners
That--banished to the outer wards--must sit beside their jailer,
On pins and needles counting down . . .
Get up, now! Join the wailer,
And let us cry and keen with him, the body in decline;
We all must face perdition of the ileum and spine.
The howl of death, a howl of birth, the two are much the same,
It's fitting that we howl our best, and exit as we came.