Tarnished words I speak aloud make me seem boisterous and proud,

Often a ringing loud in my ears fools my speech into speaking loud,

Prices getting high on everything I see processes things I don’t know,

Wondering out loud how long I’ll be around and if my gait’s too slow,

What a wicked thing life does when age overcomes who you were,

I’m a drifter now not of the wandering type but when thoughts stir,

Youth’s dreams of grandeur left my head as the hair color went white,

My sanity remained not of clarity but who it was holding me at night,

People I know look the same but remain someone they want to be,

Time is gone, the time has past us by, its time to pay can’t you see,

Deliver yourself to be reviewed as judgement falls upon actions now,

Every little good you’ve done will count against the ill wind somehow,

I’ll be delivered into paradise gates with the angel I wed walking near,

Her ticket of return to the group of angels best I pray will let me clear,

Did the best I could but it seems darkness was too much to overcome,

Ran a race of a hundred surgeries to stop bleeding but I never won,

Made love this morning for two hours to the girl I still love and adore,

Exchanging desire for passion pleases my soul into loving her more,

The dues I pay to be at her side are worth the price in pain every day,

A kiss is worth a thousand blows from iron man’s hand that I now pay,

Regret is a worthless rag when I beg for a million more blows in pay,

Her kisses will bind my wounds that I can heal in a miraculous way,

As people gather round to hear poetic rhymes delivered as a request,

I kneel on purple knees of arthritic bend to ask her hand for times test,

My pledge of allegiance to her is “beneath full moons my love will flow”,

Said aloud in a deep voice “your beauty is of an angels heavenly glow,”

Singing in the pouring rain, “waltz with me across the clouds of snow,”

Atop the clouds we’ll dance “a seniors final dance with the one I love so”

The end. By Pat for Patti