Age Rage

 

I was wandering through the Nursing Home

In the town of Morton Rise,

Seeking an old and weathered face

That I’d known in another guise,

For Richard Spratt was my father’s friend

That I hadn’t seen for years,

I was going to let him know his friend

Had taken a turn for the worse.

 

The eyes that stared from the armchairs there

Were blank, and devoid of pain,

They’d taken the pills that dulled them down

So they wouldn’t be restrained,

The nurses treated them all as fools

This gross humanity,

Whose only sin was they’d given in

To age, and infirmity.

 

It was all so very depressing, I

Imagined my future there,

Staring in immobility

From the prison of one of their chairs,

Waiting my turn to be spoon-fed

By a very impatient nurse,

Who shovelled the food all over my chin

As I sat, and inwardly cursed.

 

I wandered the home there, room by room

In search of his friendly face,

This Richard Spratt in a cricketer’s hat

I remembered from Ambergate,

He’d batted a decent fifty, while

My father polished the ball,

And took five wickets alone that day

In his bowling, over all.

 

It was nigh on forty years before

That I’d watched them play as a child,

Out on the green at Ambergate

With the weather, warm and mild,

But the years dismay as they pass away

And my father grew so old,

Now he lay in bed in a kind of dread

As the bell of his lifetime tolled.

 

I said that I’d find his friend for him

And let him know, at the last,

That he was remembered, thick and thin

For a friendship, forged in the past,

There were days when they both had sunny skies

And met each day with a grin,

But time drew shrouds like storm-filled clouds

And the end was looking grim.

 

I heard a shout from a private room

And went to investigate,

Quite a commotion in the gloom,

I hoped I wasn’t too late,

And there was a nurse stood over him

In a wheelchair, Richard Spratt,

He’d thrown his meds all over the room

And sat in his cricketer’s hat.

 

‘You know what to do with your pills, you witch,’

He shouted, and turned to see

Just who was stood in the doorway, I

Was grinning from ear to ear,

‘Well I’ll be… You can get out of here!’

He said to the wayward nurse,

Who said, ‘If you’re going to be like that…’

And left the room, with a curse.

 

I told the news of my father then

And I swear, he sat and cried,

Just a couple of tears escaped

That he hid, he still had pride,

‘Life is a trail of sorrow, son,

But we’re all on the same long train,

Your dad and I in the tunnel, while

Your carriage is still on the plain.’

 

 ‘What do you value of life the most?’

 I saw the pain in his eyes,

‘Youth was that great and precious thing

That with age, you realise!

I’d give it all for an hour to spend

In the glow of my lady’s eyes,

The touch of her skin and a hint of sin

But the thing that we love, it dies!’

 

‘I’ve often thought of those balmy days

On the green in our cricket whites,

And think I hear the crack of the ball

On the willow of sweet delight,

I remember your father’s terse ‘Howzat!’

When he scattered another’s bails,

Now I sit in this prisoning wheelchair, here

And all I can hear are wails.’

 

‘Wails from the ones who want to die,

Wails that they want to live,

The future is lost to the best of us

We have but the past to give.

You’d like to know how I feel right now,

Like a leopard, caught in a cage,

If only I could be young once more…

But all that I feel is rage!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Tate Morgan]

Beyond the pale .This piece touched a cord unlike any other.It made me think on the grandfather subdued by diabetes. He once dropped a man for cutting in front of him in a race.then stomped his wind pipe for good measure.I remembered him as the one who threw a bale of straw over the top of the barn. Oh how this felt to read.Time waits on no man,.In the end we are but shadows of the greatness that once was.The light that burns twice as bright ,Lasts half as long!

[carol burgess romance]

This is filled with such sadness and such truth....I worked with the aged over thirty years...some nursing home, other home care....I have seen this scene played out too many times....nurses that should have left that kind of work behind because they are burned out...senility at its sweetest and at its worst....much laughter and too many tears...you have an excellent write here

[minisla]

Love the flow of your poems David. Sense lots of anger and helplessness.

[Emerald Seas]

I can imagine the mixed emotions, the vitality of the mind at odds with a body that fails to keep up. This is an excellent depiction of the aging process and the difficulties that coincide. I remember my husband's grandmother saying that she didn't realize how lonely it was to live a long time (she died a day before her 96th birthday). All her friends had passed away, her family near but no one of her own time to collaborate with... it was hard on her. Her mind was as sharp as they come, but her body failed her miserably in the end.

[MOON]

You know what they say the only certainity is death and taxes. Poignant write , rage against the dying of the light...

[eatmills]

Thanks for this insightful prose. If I ever end up in this situation I would rather go for a walkabout in some foreign land.

[emmy bon]

so real sir... rage against the ending light, wishing it all should light so bright again.
sitting on the prison wheelchair all the boring ending year... having nothing but the past to give.. ma pa in his words, he still rage, he always saying ' o lord end it now not like the dying light. you write just another great piece sir

[Mic]

Not sure there's any solace in knowing males are spared these final acts in my family, as I've already passed the age several of my uncles succumbed, but was a time in my youth that I thought there was.

David, I'm not sure how many of these tales bear any truth for you on a personal note, but it seems they're all told as such. Forever in awe. Excellent.

[Valentine]

David..I am with one in that place or getting closer to..it isn't just old people taht it can happen to..I expected many more years with my husband..but it may turn out that his mind is gone and only his shell is left and hew ill not even remember me..They are doing more tests next doctors visit...Sad write for me..love and God bless Lyn and you..Kathie

[Baby Ricochet]

Brilliant dude. Just brilliant. Soon as I learn to stop swearing in poetic form maybe I can write a "Age Rage."

[Enid Blake]

I think this is your scariest poem to date, because it's an inevitable horror for most of us. Keeping it real Mr Paget...