Two poems

SANS SHAKESPEARE

Old age creeps up
unacknowledged
until suddenly it’s

a gnarled
tall totara
weather-beaten

ridiculous
dressing's a comedy of errors
socks pure slapstick

pathetic
in a youth culture era
where exuberance is all

old age
exists
consists, persists


COUPLINGS

cicada sing summer songs

of those couplings
some immense in their intensity
it seems so long ago
all that remains is fickle memory
the price we pay for being animal

wheel-chair bound
I watch with dismay
white butterflies
lay eggs on the rocket seedlings