20 September, 2051

Now I am sixty and my eyes are failing,
so the blue-hued kettle on the kitchen counter
becomes a dark apparition.
A marauder’s mask with horns;
scarier still I cannot see the edges. So
as my eyes come grinding to a close,
I cannot tell where my kitchen counter
ends.

Now I am sixty and my eyes are failing,
my eyes are failing, did you know?
and my memory has begun to desert me –
my mother: petite, lithe and straight shouldered
melts into pictures drawn in my childhood.
Grotesque pictures of square, jutting foreheads;
a man with fifteen scribbled lines for a chin and a
crooked back, a deformed hump.

I have tasted most of what the world can offer
and though I have forgotten it, my tongue
still remembers. A taste of bread dipped
in sugared chai; not tasted in fifty years, till today.
Not shocking or sweet as all food once was but
stale.

My nose may chastise my mind, saying
“I work as well as I did thirty years ago
when perfume was all I smelt!”
I would not know.

My muscles are tired and my heart,
having sprinted and then jogged so many years
has now slowed to an unsteady walk, for
water has been years in coming.
And so now I venture out rarely
and the nasal claims may be true.
I do not know.

My hands have been hacked and now, heavily
lined, they are still useful but not powerful.
I can no longer grasp a neck, pull lips to mine
while the other unbuttons. I do not have the strength
To force these moments to their crises.

Now I am sixty,
I’ve decided.
I will not live to seventy.

Hey, fellow Brit! I saw your poem had no reviews so I thought I'd be first to contribute my reactions.

Firstly, this was an outstanding piece, full of sombre reflections on death and mortality. The fact that this is set in 2051 and the speaker assumes he will not reach seventy is very telling when you consider today's life expectancy is somewhere in the mid-seventies. Your images were beautifully done:

"...the blue-hued kettle on the kitchen counter
becomes a dark apparition."

I also liked 'ends' on its own line, a technique I myself have used.

Couple of things:

1. You started out capitalising the beginning of each new sentence, then started each line with a capital letter and after that you capitalised things fairly randomly. Please be consistent so when you do decide to use an unorthodox capital we as readers know you're being deliberate.

2. Your use of the colon troubles me:

"My mother: petite, lithe and straight shouldered
Melts into pictures drawn in my childhood."

This colon doesn't follow grammatical rules. Either use parenthesis or make the dependent clause a proper sentence, like this:

"My mother: her petite, lithe and straight shouldered figure
Melts into faded pictures of my youth."

(I felt the second amendment was needed to make the statement more direct and straightforward.)

But on the whole, this was brilliant writing. I highly commend your efforts. Well done.

Gahks



9.5/10

I love that second to last stanza - very powerful. I do feel that the poem lost some momentum in the middle though. From "I have tasted..." to the first "I would not know" seems slightly disconnected from the other verses. I think it's because the theme has changed but there isn't a strong enough echo to tie them together. I know you're trying to do this with the nasal references, but perhaps you could work on linking the eyes a little more as well.

Other than that, a very interesting piece. The ending packs a lot of punch, Kudos!

Cheers,
~bubbles