Older, Aging & Old

I wont claim, like many do, that this thing called aging sneaked up on me. After all, I have been growing older for quite some time. On the other hand, it wasnt until I came to realize that the whole process would end up at old that I started to pay attention. With no defense against the inevitability of headlong growth . . . more frankly known as shrinkage . . . and being locked in with it alone for twenty-four hours every day, I decided to make a game of it. For those of you who do not just smirk at the back covers of chapbooks but actually read the poetry insideyou, the twerps, nerds, dweebs, wimps, duffers, dolts, rubes, yokels, geeks, goody two-shoes, molly-coddled milquetoasts, and jellyfish literary intellects of the worldI would call my activity a study . . . a research project, if you will . . . of a qualitative kind. The design was carefully constructed and carried out by someone other than myself, but I did manage to track the results. The more cogent outcomes I compressed into the rough lines of poetry that you will find published within this otherwise fine chapbook. I hope you will open the cover and read a few. And for the many readers of Earth Dirt & Dustmy six-chapbook anthology of poetrywho demanded a full treatment of poetic thought dedicated to the actualities of aging, I hope you enjoy.