Retire in Mexico?
I never thought retirement
would ever be the way I went,
so imagine my embarrassment
when I found my instincts leant
toward letting my employment go
and heading down to Mexico!
When I checked out the internet
to see what info I could get,
it led me to a rendezvous
that told me what I had to do.
It’s been no struggle, you can see,
Retirement was made for me!!!
Prompt words are cusp, rendezvous, retirement, struggle, embarrassment and internet.
Romantically Retired
I think I’ve formerly related
that I’m neither wooed nor dated.
Zero heroes, zero traces
of besotted hearts or faces.
Gamblers better put their money
on the fact I’ll have no honey.
Chances more likely for a win
on the roulette wheel’s random spin.
Fortune tellers’ only visions
are of partings and divisions.
No new meetings, no reunion
that might prompt a future union.
So I guess I’ll go on missing
bouts of geriatric kissing.
And instead of passions new,
fond memories will have to do.
Prompt words today are spin, related, traces, vision, money and zero.
Postcard from an Old Work Buddy
Shifted my focus,
turned 45 degrees to the right,
began walking.
Ended up near the equator,
removed my shoes,
wiggled free toes in the sand.
Plucked new fruit from an unnamed tree.
Suffered no ill-effects.
New life, suits me fine. Wish you were here.?
For dVerse poets Quadrille Prompt: Shift
To see other Quadrilles on this topic go HERE.
Working Out in My Seventies
I badly need a product that will make me indefatigable.
I have not the energy to blow, and less to bat a bubble.
It is just unfathomable that I ever walked
twelve miles through the jungle and barely even balked!
At the high point of my youth, adventures were my thing,
but lately I feel much deprived of energy and zing.
Swinging in my hammock is now enough for me.
It seems to mark the zenith of my energy!!!
Prompt words today are zenith, unfathomable, indefatigable and product.
Click on photos to enlarge.
Grandma’s Escape Note
I’m juggling my remembrances of all you said and did
way back in the past when you were just a kid,
when I was so uptight and the scalawag was you,
causing all my looks of disapproval and of moue.
But now that I am seventy and you’re a kid of fifty,
the fact that things are changed around is somehow sorta nifty.
I’m the one who’s acting up while you are disapproving.
You registered your angst when you heard that I was moving
off to wild Mexico, away from kith and kin,
leaving far behind me all the things that I have been.
The stuff stored in the attic? I’ll leave it all to you.
I don’t have time to deal with it. I’ve still so much to do.
The house is up for sale, so you’ll want to get right to it.
I’ve planted a surprise up there. You’ll know it when you view it.
I’ve cashed out the investments that your dear dad and I
saved up for the future—he was such a frugal guy.
But now that he is gone, I want to be off, too,
so I split up all the money, some for me and some for you.
My part is for my future—a small sweet hacienda
and provisions and comestibles I’ll buy at the tienda.
Your dinero’s in the attic, some tucked here and some tucked there
to insure that you look closely and make sure that you take care
in examining the past and all those years I cared for you
so you do not dispute what I’m about to do.
If I have twenty years left, I’ll be lucky, so it’s fair
that I have another chance at letting down my hair.
I want to go out dancing and drink shooters and get wild.
I’m tired of a life that is grandmotherly and mild!
And so I don’t embarrass you, I’m moving farther south,
away from prying eyes and away from word of mouth.
I’m doing you the favor that you didn’t grant to me
all those years you got in trouble and I was there to see.
Now I’ll be the adolescent and you can click your tongue,
for I’ve waited all these years for me to be the one who’s young.
Kiss my grandkids and your grandkids and tell them it’s from me,
but that I can’t stick around because I’m off in search of me!!
Prompt words for today are moue, scalawag, juggle and remembrance.
Retirement?
My future is amorphous. It has no shape or plan.
Up the creek without a paddle, I have no job or man.
My freedom? It is ludicrous. I’m well out of the chase.
All my time is leisure time. I live a slower pace.
Who named this phase re-tirement? There’s nothing that is tiring.
If they want to tire me out again, they’d best replace my wiring.
Prompt words today are chase, ludicrous, amorphous and paddle.
Extreme Retirement
My daydreams lack a focus. They float by like a cloud.
It is as though much logic is simply not allowed.
Should plans besmirch my reverie, I’m sure to blot them out,
for my thoughts are vagabonds—aimless, without a doubt.
A mortarboard and tassel lurk far within my past,
and I fear the plans they made simply didn’t last
I lie here in my lounge chair, getting too much sun.
I should raise the umbrella, for sunburn is no fun,
but I cannot stir myself. I’m simply far too lazy.
Retirement would be easier if all the skies were hazy!
Prompt words today are tassel, blot, focus and besmirch. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/19/rdp-tuesday-tassel/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/19/fowc-with-fandango-blot/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/19/focus/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/19/your-daily-word-prompt-besmirch-march-19-2019/
Dropping Out
I’m tired of enlightenment, bored with my muse.
I give up on all topics that spur and enthuse.
I think I’ll be lazy for the rest of my life,
avoiding all effort and dodging all strife.
For what do I worry and ponder and seethe?
What care I for clean water and air we can breathe?
Let fools be our guides. Let them rule us all.
Let other fools follow them until they fall.
Let scientists fuss over theory and fractal.
I’ll deal with endeavors more sensual and tactile.
I’ll plot games of solitaire, fiddle with flowers,
play video games for hours and hours.
I’ll torment the cat and worry the dog,
lie in the hammock, my mind in a fog.
Let other folks solve all the world’s ills.
I’ll keep myself busy with vodka and pills.
Use avoidance to overcome all of my worries.
Let torpor eradicate all of my hurries.
I’m overlooking the problems in which the world’s mired.
If I need an excuse, It’s that I am retired.
The prompts today are seethe, guide, tactile and muse. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/11/10/rdp-saturday-seethe/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/11/10/fowc-with-fandango-guide/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/10/tactile/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/daily-addictions-2018-week-44/muse
The Retirement
His retirement oration
was a clear manifestation
of his need for a vacation.
It had been long in its gestation—
a long-awaited incubation.
Now, it was an education
to witness his mad excitation
over his final termination.
On view, his heart’s wild palpitation
celebrating the cessation
of the daily tedious ration
dished out at his working station.
Let it be an education
that one’s final maturation
need not be a castigation,
but is instead a satiation—
a sort of workplace masturbation
ending in this apt quotation,
“Even an end can bring elation!”
j
The Word of the Day today is manifestation.
Click on any photo to enlarge all. The Poem “An Ex-Pat’s Credo” follows the photos.
An Ex-Pat’s Credo
Some may think my generation’s recent mass migration
to be a “giving up” on life—a certain violation.
That rubric that we stay engaged to ease our children’s lives—
to witness births of babies (then their twos, threes, fours and fives)
may not be the paradigm we choose when we are older.
Some of us want changes, and some of us are bolder.
We want to spend remaining years discovering and delving.
Do you think it’s selfish to continue with our “selving?”
Families are wonderful and we love them well,
but parents can’t be always living by the bell.
Once a child is raised and off on their next adventure,
their parents have not signed any articles of indenture.
They, too, can now be off to see what else their life may hold,
and though that path’s not right for all, before they’re very old
they might desire a warmer place or country that is new,
but what they choose to leave behind is certainly not you.
They’ll carry you in hearts and minds, and they’ll still hold you dear.
They’ll Skype you and they’ll Facebook. They’ll visit every year.
They’ll be there for graduations, celebrations and each birth.
They’ll share your family’s traumas, their successes and their mirth.
But they won’t be waiting at home for you to call,
for the children to find time for them between school and football
and proms and camp and movies and parties with their friends,
for they well remember that the schedule never ends!
See this as rehearsal for the day your kids will go
off to other places to learn and change and grow.
You’ll wish them well and though you’re sad, will send them to their fate.
and then perhaps decide there’s more than kids to educate.
You’ll then be free to concentrate on new states of existence—
free we hope as we’ve been from their loud insistence
that you spend the whole rest of your life putting them first
no matter what your own dreams are, no matter how you thirst
to see what there is left in life, perhaps, like us, to travel
not through a wish to leave behind, not seeking to unravel,
but rather like two busy bees intent upon their hive,
demonstrating by their acts that they are still alive!
The prompt words today are migration, violation, rubric (an established rule, tradition, or custom) and concentrate. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/09/25/rdp-tuesday-migration/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/25/fowc-with-fandango-violation/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/25/rubric/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/09/23/daily-addictions-2018-week-38/concentrate
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 