RETIREMENT

Someday
I will be an old
Poet an old man
In an old suit a tie
And a fedora hat
Reading old poems
About the old days
To young kids who
Won’t appreciate
Poetry or jazz or
The silence of the
Mind nature or
Music the mystic
Or the magick of
Life

And it is
Then at that
Very moment
When one of
Them makes
Another fart joke
In the middle of
My reading that
I shall pause
Smile & then with
A magick incantation
Turn into a fifty foot
Serpent & eat them
All in the school
Auditorium telling
The school principal
That they all just
Hated my poetry
And left as I let out
A loud & infinite
Belch and I get on
The bus
& leave

~ R.M. Engelhardt/2019