FUNNY OLD MEN

There for a stretch
young ladies I'd meet casually
would smile openly
and then continue on their way.

Now I've grown older,
of a certain age I guess,
they no longer smile - actually,
they no longer meet my gaze.

Is it something they read
in an old man's stoop,
his gait, his shifting, barely
seeing eyes that water so badly?

Men get funny as they get older,
looking strange, maybe even
a bit deranged, threatening.
It's why I avoid looking in mirrors.




MAKING A CASE FOR EDITORS

A lot of us who write wish
we could bypass the editor
altogether and just get right
to the publisher, a softer type,
who it seems would be more
inclined to get our work
into print, just as it is.

But I'll admit I sometimes
confuse or for of and from for for
and if for it and house for horse,
even night for day, nap for nip.
It's embarrassing to type cup
when I mean cap, yip for yap -
just a lazy brain, I guess.

But whether you're editor or
publisher, you're welcome at
my horse anytime - drop by from
a wee nap or maybe a daycup.


Bill Roberts is a retired nuclear weapons consultant who dreams that someday all WMD will be negotiated into oblivion. He apologizes for inventing the atomic bomb. Bill's poetry has appeared in well over a hundred small-press and online journals over the past thirteen years. He lives a bit too close to the edge in bucolic Broomfield, Colorado.