I will write poetry,
seriously,
notwithstanding that it will not likely see the light of day
in print
in even the obscurest journals.
I may read it to my friends, but only
after
they have had some cocktails
Early in the morning I will sing
off key, off tune,
in the shower--
old songs by Irving Berlin
and Cole Porter.
I will sit on my porch on summer nights
and smoke cigars (greenish gray panatelas)
watching the smoke wafting out over the shrubs
and rising in the lamplight.
I will drink bourbon whiskey
in highball glasses
neat
without ice.
I will read bad books
and see dumb noplot action movies.
I will eat steaks and baked potatoes with sour cream,
superduperdeluxe burgers in fastfood joints,
drink cheap beer and wine in bottles with screw-on tops.
My belly will grow fat and hang out over my belt
and I will laugh with a big ha ha
and drive around in a big
slow
four-door car.
I will hang out with my wife in shopping malls,
drink senior discount decaf coffee in the Vie de France Cafe,
and in fair weather: not too hot, not too cold, we will walk by a lake
in the yellowing light of late afternoon,
and watch a duck rise,
and low-flying geese in a raggedy vee, honking.
I will talk on the telephone to my grandchildren in distant cites,
read to them stories and poetry--
Don't kid yourself-- kids know good verse--
they know, they know,
forgetting down as up they grow,
ice cream emperors,
ragged claws on ocean floors,
scuttling,
rude beasts slouching, slithy toves,
tiger burning tiger bright,
fill up with snow the borogroves,
and miles to go before I sleep, before I sleep--
Goodnight, goodnight.