By: Mark Millicent

OLDER

On reflection it’s getting cold; on reflection,
I’m growing old
My gate and stride, not as robust.
I sit longer than I did, not as active as the kid
Musing and smiling at the treasures I keep
The things that I once did.
What are you thinking?
It’ll happen to you.
One day you’ll grow old, said the father to his son,
“What me?”
said the boy ‘but my life it’s just begun.’
‘Ha you say that now as your life is yet to live
But blood sweat and tears are the price you’ve yet to give’
Time, you never see it coming, senescence unasked for
From cradle to the grave from a king back to a knave.
Powerful unstoppable, ambition gently softened by the years.
There was always tomorrow but not now, not today
Not fully or completely there is time for one last spurt.
But the finish lines now visible and getting there may hurt
Best make one last rush – to push it away.
Let’s not get there today
Let’s leave this tape unbroken
no finish, not soon anyway
maybe in the next few years who knows?
Maybe the race will go on.
The running is good at least that’s for now
A steady trot not a sprint because once run,
then the race is gone.
The day is coming
That day will be done.

                                                         *****************

HMMM …

If you feel you need your money back halfway through a show
Do you leave in mid-performance, make a noise and go?
If it’s a thing that you always wanted
But by the time you got
The amount of want you’ve left inside is nowhere near a lot
Something that is very simple
Is nowhere near the norm
Expensive superlatives are the general form
Most of us are chasing rainbows
Rarely is one caught
Because rainbows they are dreams and
Dreams go on forever;
And forever can’t be bought.

SITTING

Sitting thinking living to breathe,
remembering happy contented warm
smiling shimmer glass, the mirror lake is a place to reflect
To view yourself.
A coot paddling the gold leaf dots the painting
of gold leaves dotted about the smooth leather surface,
I haven’t words to fill the grand majesty
of the towering granite and olive-colored scrub
of the mountains towering over me the water effortlessly
making me feel small while I scribble these worlds
Like the boy that I was not moments ago
smiling wondering it doesn’t feel odd
chilled with thanks
and thanks for everything
and thanks be
to god.

Mark Millicent is a UK writer and illustrator based in the USA at present. He works in the advertising and film world of Los Angeles living and is working in the Santa Monica Mountains for now.