[Joe Crocker]

rev 1
Losing the plot

Now that I am old,
half deaf, unsighted, and forgetful,
I struggle to engage.

My hearing aid won’t help. It hisses
sibilants that camouflage the shape
of words I thought I knew.

My crouching cockeyed glasses see the distance out of true.
Wayward, they are looking to escape,
homesick for a settled point of view.

The list of things to do is curt and misses
out the things I used to do.

And jokes just laugh among themselves.
I do not ask them to explain their laughter.
That spark will not be worried after.

Often I am looked at like I’m odd.
I misjudge the tide, marooned or overwhelmed.
Often, yes, I simply smile and nod.

A wind is blowing way over my head.
I wonder what it brings:
the leavings from some far-off chatter,
nearer now, the hushing shadow
at the end of things.





Losing the plot.

Now that I am old,
half deaf, unsighted, and forgetful,
I struggle to engage.

My hearing aid won’t help. It hisses
sibilants that camouflage the shape
of words I thought I knew.

My crouching cockeyed glasses see the distance out of true.
Wayward, they are looking to escape,
homesick for a settled point of view.

The list of things to do is curt and misses
out the things I used to do.

And jokes just talk among themselves.
I do not ask them to explain their laughter.
That spark will not be worried after.

Often I am looked at like I’m odd.
I misjudge the tide, marooned or overwhelmed.
Often, yes, I simply smile and nod.

A wind is blowing way above my head.
I wonder what it brings:
the leavings from some far-off chatter,
nearer now, the hushing shadow
at the end of things.

[Roger Slater]

I think this is very good, but did you mean to post it in Metrical?

[Max Goodman]

I like this, Joe.

The last stanza feels different than the rest, more evocative, less prosey/prosaic. The rest might be pushed in that direction with more concision. (Half deaf, unsighted, and forgetful,/I struggle to engage.//My hearing aid hisses...)

In another way, too, the last stanza doesn't feel to me like it fits the rest of the poem: Despite its unhelpful second line, the last stanza is about knowing what is going on. Maybe a turn could make it clearer that the poem recognizes this change in approach.

The glasses make clear--and much of the rest implies--that the speaker is not "unsighted."

FWIW.

[RCL]

Very good and powerful, Joe. I can easily identify with the litany of old age maladies, including the wonderment of the final S, which I think should end with a question mark. I also agree with Roger that this would be more appropriate in non-met.

Oh, on "unsighted," how about less sighted or dimly sighted?

Refreshingly honest about what we didn't sign up for. Thanks.

[Carl Copeland]

I’m happy to have this in met. It’s anisometric (just learned the word), but we don’t have an anisomet forum, and it’s iambic from start to finish (allowing for some headlessness).

The jokes talking among themselves is probably my favorite bit, but I wonder about “worry after.” Is that idiomatic in the UK, or am I mistaking your meaning?

A mark of punctuation is missing after “head.”

We can’t tell whether “nearer now” refers to the leavings or the shadow, but it may not matter.

Actually, I think my favorite line is a very plain one: “I wonder what it brings.” For me, this captures the mood of the whole poem: a calm, resigned curiosity about the process of aging. If only we could all age as philosophically as this narrator.

[Carl Copeland]

It just came to me! The mood of this poem is mono no aware. I don’t know Japanese, but someone once described it this way: a woman looks in the mirror, sees gray in her hair, sighs and senses the poignantly beautiful passing of all things.

[Mark McDonnell]

I think this is wonderful, Joe. It’s gentle and poignant but sharp enough so there is no self-pity. There is still a self-aware twinkle in the narrator’s eye. I like the narrator of this poem. I agree it is absolutely metrical. It is also very musical. I love the scattered rhymes, throughout, which feel random but always in just the right place.

Mark

[R. Nemo Hill]

What Mark said.

Nemo

[John Riley]

Yes, this is simple in the best sort of way. There are so few poems written about aging. You've done it here is the rightest right way. I see nothing I'd change.

[Jim Moonan]

.
This is a bonafide reckoning with aging; not so much philosophical to my ear as it is isolating. The senses are shutting down. There is a gossamer-like, colorless quality to the voice.

I love the title. The present-ness of it.

Things slowly settle into melancholy and in the final lines a simple profoundness is present that sings.

My only question is regarding the irregular stanzaic lineation but that can be seen as an echo of the uneasy mood of the poem. Would you consider tercets from top to bottom?

Because I’m an inveterate tinkerer, here are a few word choices I thought might be worth consideration:

S5L1: "replace "talk" with "laugh".
I think it sounds better both sonically and from the standpoint of the imagery of isolation that I get from the N being left out of the joking/laughing. It would also provide the slant repetition of "laughter" in S5L2 and then the rhyme of "after" in S5L3. —All of which have a sonic, slant rhyme quality.

S7: “A wind is blowing way above my head” — do you need “way”? Another thought would be to replace “way” with “far” and that would play off “nearer” in S6L3.
If you were to reduce the last stanza to three lines I thought this might work:

A wind is blowing far above my head.
I wonder what it brings: nearer now,
the hushing shadow at the end of things.

Anyway, I’m poking around too much. I like the poem very much.

.