Baby Boomers Are Aging - Kathy Figueroa

Baby boomers are aging
Sometimes, dementia takes hold
It isn’t a pleasant thing
But happens as folks get old

Personalities might change
This can cause consternation
When someone starts acting strange
It’s a bad situation

What is a person to do
When a friend becomes bonky?
Relationships get ruined
When things go weird and wonky

What if they behave in ways
Both hurtful and offensive?
It seems pointless - of no use
To even get defensive

You can’t suggest to someone
That they go and take a pill
If they’ve “gone off the deep end”
But, yet, you care for them, still

If they become deceitful
And deny the things they’ve done
What are you supposed to do
When you can’t just turn and run?

It’s a terrible disease
One that seems devoid of hope
So, until a cure is found
We’ll pray for the strength to cope

Kathy Figueroa

Baby Boomers Are Aging was published in the February 23, 2017 issue of The Bancroft Times newspaper.

Last Hope - Julian Clarke

The visions are clouded for the cynics of mankind who blindly believe it best not to believe.
But Layla’s last hope for her sick one lay in the palms of a pagan priestess.
And so the priestess cast a circle upon the ground and with eyes closed she rode the latitudes of time.
From all points of the compass winds were weaving weighing mystic chants from the shaman of nations to dance in spiritual trance.
With karma gathered and harnessed in heart the priestess returned to her natural awareness.
Her rainbow gown laced in white flowed silently while hands circled the air as she sang incantations with spiritual care.
Layla wore tears on her cheeks that rolled to the earth as she wept with joy at the breath of her daughter’s soulful re-birth.

Julian Clarke

The Nerve - Philip M Gale

Have you got the nerve
to take it all the way
make it work when all goes bad
fight another day.

Then rise above the odds
to do your given best
battle on against the pain
without a day of rest.

Can you hold your nerve
when they destroy all your trust
turn the other cheek
still love life when love is lost.

Can you look at danger
stare it in the face
have you got the nerve
to join the human race.

Philip M Gale

Trash Ethics - Donald Keyman

We're sending the tip of our refuse iceberg
To the land of Lindgren, Larsson and Strindberg
Yes, thank you Sweden, especially for Abba
Please take these pots from a rusting old crabber

So put out your bags, pile them up on the corner
They're all being sent to their own personal sauna
We're sending our empties, wine, spirits and beer
Crushed and shipped like a flatpack from IKEA

Mamma Mia! it's Swedish, our trash is now sexy
Who wants to dump it on boring old Jersey?
But, can you imagine Bergman and Garbo
Raking through Guernsey's rubbishy cargo?

Donald Keyman

Young Smokers - Diane Scantlebury

As he gazed up from his buggy with wondrous eyes,
A plume of mushroom shaped smoke
Hovered darkly above his head,
Poisonous fumes from the glowing stick
His mother clenched between her lips,
He marvelled as she exhaled,
Every puff obscuring her face
In a peek-a-boo game he’d played before,
She’d reappear suddenly with a throaty cough
Then bend and sweep him up,
Pressing his face into the familiar
Acrid perfume of her jumper,
He was too young to have a choice
Or to know that her selfish habit,
Would eventually cause
His untimely death.

Diane Scantlebury