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Contributor Series 11: On Birthdays, The Last Birthday


07.14.12 Posted in Contributor Series 11, today's words by

Contributor Series 11: On Birthdays
The Last Birthday
By James G Piatt

The wheel that spins memories in its wake,
The mortal things we forget for time’s sake,

We play at gay abandon so loose and free,
Practice gaudy dramas to the nth degree,

In our frantic race to find what is eternal,
We fail to heed the advice written in life’s journal,

We heartily follow the forbidden and foolish,
Sit upon gold and ivory thrones so ghoulish:

In youth, like the Gods, we rush with hair on fire,
Adoration of the golden idol we did aspire,

We beseech the dark powers to halt earth’s spin,
To heartily partake in earthly pleasures, so very thin,

Then an old man who captures all time, grabbed
Our remaining years with an ominous chime,

All fraught with atonement and haste, we tried
Too late to recapture the past so pleasant to taste,

In our pursuing of youthful theater so ill advised,
We ended up old and frail and seemed surprised,

Arriving finally at the end, all troubled and sore, we
Seem quite alarmed we couldn’t close death’s door.

James G Piatt’s most recent poem to appear here was My Soul Flows (May 2012).



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