Alzheimers Or Dementia... Poem by John Tansey

Shiftless, as a tot
without tooth or firm foot,
the old bald man
unable to stand, upon infirm legs,
left abandoned in a chair
rambles on
mindless of what dear possessions
he once held claim,
having settled into dust
with a dry mouth thirst for remembrance
of a name, dying upon his tongue,
cleansed of the sorrowful
cognizant self,
unaware of what past life
drowns,
in a salt sea
of saliva ebbing down his chin.

Naked, as a babe
into a toddler's pose
sloughing all long term renown
of years gone, he relapses
oblivious, to what lies beyond reach
as a sot, feeble on his back,
bowels inherently unburden onto the sheets,
shucking limb, bark
and all the layered graves of his learning
he returns to the womb, stripped of all skins;
peeling back, the leaf
until only the soft shelled nut
of the senile child,
remains,
having come full turn,
to the babbling origin of our native tongue
he folds back the husk
through the seasons of his age
to the short term timelessness

of contentment and tantrum...