Retired

A sultry September morning,

strolling slowly toward the "bench".

Old cronies sit like pigeons

mindlessly feeding the pigeons.

So, how's your bowels?

How many times did your prostate

sound reveille during the night?

Fixed income brigade worries:

Will coin of the realm endure?

Hypochondriachs monitor

each orifice of the body.

Political debates trigger

memories of forgotten passions,

sparks fly as Stalinists threaten

to duke it out with Trotskyites.

Children scurry off to school,

hair plastered down, pencils sharpened.

Worried workers run for the bus,

anxious sweat begins their day.

Old revolutionaries sit in the sun

wondering where their life has gone.

Milton P. Ehrlich