Tag Archives: poem about wrinkles

“Wrinkles” for MVB, Sept 25, 2024

When it comes to aging, I’ve found a sense of humor becomes ever more important. Take the subject of wrinkles, for instance! I wrote this poem ten years ago and when I look in the mirror, I realize its truth has only become more obvious!!!

Wrinkles

Once when I was younger, poundage was the thing—
as I obsessed about the growth calories might bring.
Every morning on the scale, I checked for extra girth.
Any extra poundage was how I gauged my worth.
But now that I am older, I check the mirror first
before I stop to weigh myself or slake my morning thirst.
First thing on my agenda, if I have the chance,
is to approach my mirror to have a daily glance.
Now every little wrinkle, every little line
viewed within my mirror brings a little whine.
But when I step upon the scale, there’s less there to regret.
If I’ve gained a pound or two, I vow just to forget.
For if I’ve found new wrinkles, all that I can say
is every extra pound I gain just stretches them away.

For MVB the prompt is : humor

Sculpted

Sculpted

These lines upon my face are ripple marks that represent
all of my life’s ebb and flow, those tides that life has sent.
Calligraphy defining those advantages provided
along with life’s misfortunes that somehow I abided.

Life gives and takes away, sometimes in equal measure—
pain spicing our life as surely as the pleasure—
smile lines as well as creases left by frowns.
Surely, there’s no shortage of life’s ups and downs.

It is the hand of nature sculpting animal and flower,
altering and remolding hour after hour.
From dinosaur to newborn babe—fish and bird and tree,
there is no end to our world’s originality.

Time is the finest sculptor of everything we see.
It is the very master of creativity.
Animal, vegetable, mineral—no two things quite the same.
Constant alteration is evolution’s game.

 

Prompt words today are ripple marks, represent, spice, definition, shortage and advantage.

Joys of Aging

Joys of Aging

I expected wheezing and perhaps crepitations,
creaking joints and even gaseous emanations.
Minor loss of memory and odious rolls of fat,
problems kneeling on my knees, but apart from that,
Mother never taught me and Father never told
the most bothersome drawbacks there were to growing old.

These lines and tracks enmeshing my neck are most distressing.
I can’t conceal them with cosmetics or the way I’m dressing.
They’ve crept onto my forehead and made crow’s feet near my eyes.
These crevasses above my lips I simply can’t disguise,
and though I crave a remedy that would work for sure for them,
no website has  a cream and no peddler has a cure for them.

The only sure solution is a boyfriend who’s my age
who has similar problems so we’re on the same page.
And hopefully among those ills, he’ll suffer from myopia,
macular degeneration or perhaps presbyopia
so he will not notice the fissures on my face
or the deterioration of any other place.

Prompt words today are father, enmesh, peddler, apartcrepitate, presbyopia, another.

 

“Why Don’t You Let Me Iron That for You?”


“Why Don’t You Let Me Iron That for You?”

When there is a wrinkle, she works fast to smooth it out.
She loves to plug the iron in and move it all about.
Steam wafting all around her, she executes arm action.
She finds it scintillating dealing with each new infraction
of the rule that each garment should hang seamless and true,
without a single furrow dividing it from you.
She feels no reluctance in relieving clothes of wrinkles—
no puckers and no creases. No scrunches and no crinkles.
Because of her I’m faultless. My wardrobe is sublime,
for in Yolanda’s view, a wrinkled garment is a crime!

 

Yolanda has been my housekeeper, accomplice and friend for twenty years now. She rearranges my belongings, leaving little jokes, removes dust and fingerprints and generally rules the roost when it comes to the state of my house. In addition, neither I nor any houseguest can leave the house without meeting with her discerning eye. and if she spots a wrinkle, you can be sure she’ll whip the iron out and insist that it be dealt with. I’ve never yet won an argument to the contrary.

Prompt words today are scintillate, smooth, waft, reluctant and fast.

Story Lines


Story Lines

I’m enlivened by my lineaments. They show where I have smiled.
Without them, I am sure my face would be too bland and mild.
It surely would be awkward if I had no tracks or lines.
A face would be so boring without channel marks or vines.

Wrinkles liven up a face. They show where it has been.
They tell what’s happened in one’s life, but don’t tell where or when.
They leave up to mouths and hands to embellish the story
with details more specific—more romantic, funny, gory.

Your face is the epitome of how you’ve lived your life.
It shows the tracks of pleasures, of sadness and of strife.
Without the stories that they tell, there’d be no place to look
anywhere on your body to read you like a book!

 

Word prompts today are lineament, epitome, awkward and liven.

Wrinkle

 

Wrinkle

Once when I was younger, poundage was the thing—
as I obsessed about the growth calories might bring.
Every morning on the scale, I checked for extra girth.
Any extra poundage was how I gauged my worth.
But now that I am older, I check the mirror first
before I stop to weigh myself or slake my morning thirst.
First thing on my agenda, if I have the chance,
is to approach my mirror to have a daily glance.
Now every little wrinkle, every little line
viewed within my mirror brings a little whine.
But when I step upon the scale, there’s less there to regret.
If I’ve gained a pound or two, I vow just to forget.
For if I’ve found new wrinkles, all that I can say
is every extra pound I gain just stretches them away.

 

I wrote to this exact prompt four years ago, so here it is again. The prompt word today is wrinkle.

Where Time Goes

 Version 2

Where Time Goes 

They have not vanished without a trace.
Past years are written on your face.
They web your skin like finest lace,
its former smoothness to efface,
and write a story in its place.

The prompt today was replacement.