Stinky Cheese

During the years I worked for Social Security, I spent many hours visiting clients in nursing homes and medical care facilities. There is an odor that permeates such facilities -- one I came to  think of as the smell of advanced age. As I advance, I fear developing that characteristic...

Stinky Cheese

The silent passing wind in our abode,
Leaves more than saintly treacle in its wake:
A distant dance of offal a la mode,
In league with moldy stockings -- baked in cake.
Like all creatures that venture forth to die,
Our species slowly ripens without cease.
Seasoned with sun and salted when we cry,
We age akin to wheels of stinky cheese.
Active in our youth, we mix with others,
Homogenous, we seek to be the same.
Time brings differences with sisters, brothers,
And others, as we all seek who to blame.
You may call it character, if you please,
But winds of change have made us stinky cheese.

Mick McKellar
January 2025

Stones

I stand knee deep in the lake of my days,
And gather a stone for each memory,
Some jagged and sharp in a hundred ways,
Some are worn smooth or are polished by me.

A few are so large they are hard to hold,
And the tiny ones slip through my fingers.
Moss covers many, having grown so old,
Though the weight of their impact still lingers.

Time and the waves push and roll in and out,
Smoothing sharp edges of sorrow and pain,
Helping me gather my stones all about,
To treasure each memory once again.

Mick McKellar
December 2024

Sky Music

The sky is bright.
A silver glow
Of brilliant moonlight
Limns all below,
And sparkling starlight twinkles in the firmament,
Of softest velveteen, endless and permanent.

Music ethereal
Caresses night,
Silent and aerial,
Essential, right,
And filling up my senses with the sound,
Of silent music love makes when around.

Mick McKellar
November 2024

Please Tell Me Why the Media Are Mad

Please tell me why the media are mad!
Why do their crises often make no sense?
Stories that should scare me just make me sad,
Reading the news leaves me depressed and tense.

Presidents confront thousands of issues,
Yet all they talk about is two or three.
I can’t watch the news without my tissues,
Their talking points are now my allergies.

Daily come expensive, flashy mailers,
And each extols a candidate’s strong suits,
Or why some slightly bent ones need jailers,
For with the devil they are in cahoots.

Slowly, I’ve adapted to the clangor,
Although I think the waste of time is sad.
My response is neither hate nor anger,
Please tell me why the media are mad!

Mick McKellar
November 2024

A Whisper and a Song

Some lives become a shout of love to hear.
Some lives sing out with boundless joy and mirth.
Some lives cry out with pain, yet never fear,
For each and every life must leave the Earth.
In that leave-taking, dwells an emptiness,
Surrounded by aggrieved cacophony -
A wall of memories and loneliness,
Abyssal-deep and wide as any sea.
In all the shouts and songs and anguished cries,
In all the memories and stories old,
In all the tears and all the empty eyes -
A life, a whisper and a song, are told
In solemn prayers to Spirit, Father, Son.
A life, a song, a whisper, has passed on.

Mick McKellar
October 2024

I Listen to the Politicians Speak

I listen to the politicians speak,
And note each piecrust promise they reveal.
If representative,
Of places they all live,
Their words should have a more assuring feel.

But all the ancient platitudes they squeak,
And all the unkind stories that they tell,
(Another candidate
Is someone I should hate?)
Make me feel increasingly unwell.

I want each politician to bespeak,
How they will manage storms and stress and strife;
To keep us safe and sane,
Keep watch on guns and grain,
And maybe help us have a better life.

Mick McKellar
October 2024

Fairy Circle

I stood upon adventure's razor edge,
A chance to taste the spice of things long feared,
A chance to dance an ancient sacrilege,
For on my lawn a Fairy Ring appeared.

Tread lightly where unseen Sidhe shadows play,
In dawn's soft light or twilight's creeping gloom,
For though your footsteps feel so light and gay,
The Tuatha Dé Danann craft your doom.

Beware the ring where fairies dance and play,
For mortals who join in their sacred round,
In dawn's first light or twilight's shadowed sway,
May find themselves by fae enchantments bound.

I jumped right in and jumped back out again,
In hardly what you'd ever call a dance.
I felt a fool for fearing their domain,
But I was never going to take a chance.

Mick McKellar
September 2024