Seven Poems by Ken Gosse

 

The Penultimate Page 

 

“There’s more than enough time to age,” 

says our youth, with assumptions we’re sage, 

but as time moves along 

we don’t know when the song 

won’t allow us to turn the next page. 

 

 

 

A Bit of Drivel 

 

Cute dribble of a baby’s drool 

in old age makes us look the fool. 

 

 

 

Time Dribbles On 

 

Dribbles thrive 

as we survive 

beyond the age 

when we were sage 

(Rosemary told me 

that with thyme 

our dribbles river 

into rhyme.) 

 

 

 

A Visit to Nashville (the Poet, not the City) 

 

My senior moments 

practiced now, 

means when I need them, 

I’ll know how. 

 

 

 

From Hip to Hop 

 

Yesterday, 

I thought both my hips 

were here to stay. 

Now I’ve got a different 

song to play. 

I’ve long forgotten 

yesterday. 

 

 

 

Small Deposit, No Return 

 

Here today, gone tomorrow, 

but, if not, I guess I’ll borrow 

one more day, at least a slice 

(I hope the final piece is nice) 

before that peace which should suffice 

which I can’t earn before I burn 

and then, completing my last turn, 

once poured into a fired urn 

in pax and pieces, can’t return. 

 

 

 

Eventually 

 

Words etched in stone 

or branded with fire 

or stamped on cans— 

we’ll all expire.

Ken Gosse usually writes short, rhymed verse using whimsy and humour in traditional meters. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, he has also been published by Pure Slush, Home Planet News Online, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and others. Raised in the Chicago, Illinois, suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, for over twenty years, usually with rescue dogs and cats underfoot.