The Old People Poem by RIC BASTASA

beyond the rules
we continue to write

we are old people
jumping over fences

they say we have become
the subject of ridicule

our kind of ostentations
are actually ostracizations

nevertheless we are at this
lonely age and we
say what we want to say

we write what we want to
write
anywhere and anytime

what do we care?
we carry nothing going there
we leave nothing to beware

we are old bones rattling
for the snakes

and those dogs never care
never bite

do we think we deserve to
be pitied?
we do not

we are children playing
in the park
without mothers watching
us fall

we are eggs newly hatched
falling from the skies.