I used to think this a term for athletes
Late in their careers
Past their prime

Yet I sit here now
Looking at the pill dispenser
Filled to the brim each day

Not long ago I didn’t even own one
Until the litany of trials and tribulations began
A never ending trail to doctors

Blood and ***** tests,
CT scan, then MRI, followed by
an endoscopy and an Ultrasound

Now four separate ailments identified
The fifth without a diagnosis
Stealth, planning an untimed attack

No grandparents, parents, uncles left
A dear high school friend gone at an early age
My buddy for many years departed

Now this
My youngest brother passing
Far before his time

A two week cold or flu sapping my energy
Then some bug decides to invade
So I curtail eating, on mostly fluids now

I feel weak
And exhausted
And washed up

Andreas Simic©

I feel like an antiquity
some relic from the past

crumbling at the edges
eroded over time

aging has arrived
There are fissures in my proud steel plated armor

once invincible
reality is bringing with it a heavy blow

it creeps upon you
like a stealth thief in the night

now you berate yourself
for being caught unaware

new words slip into your vocabulary
things like “possible stroke”

a litany of tests are conducted
let’s begin with a blood test

maybe a ***** sample
we can schedule an MRI

is this a heart attack
there is a CAT or CT scan as it is known

what about the C word, cancer
let’s do an ultrasound

ff that doesn’t find it there is always
an endoscopy or colonoscopy complete with biopsy

the realization that life’s destiny is prevailing
is the end nigh

the relic you have become
looking at you in the mirror of life

Andreas Simic©

Forsake me my clumsy heart
I have known peace and joy
But held them as a baby held a toy
How foolish a mischief on my part

Daring darling endeavours
Gaming the survival tempest
Stunts begrudge in me a shredded grandeur
I have found the misery I sought

After war is peace
The folklore reminds me a call to action
The steps I braved shape me motionless
I fret on how beyond is history ahead of my time

Glory glory
I enjoy the distant story
But my present flow
Praised me master of pain
Novice to tranquillity

Disintegration so delicate
Angonizing my ardor  with great artistry
Destruction going so far with distraction
No allow even the cunning faith of mine to burlglarize its masterpiece

Update of "A Litany in Time of Plague"
by Michael R. Burch

THE PLAGUE has come again
To darken lives of men
and women, girls and boys;
Death proves their bodies toys
Too frail to even cry.
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!

Tycoons, what use is wealth?
You cannot buy good health!
Physicians cannot heal
Themselves, to Death must kneel.
Nuns’ prayers mount to the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty’s brightest flower?
Devoured in an hour.
Kings, Queens and Presidents
Are fearful residents
Of manors boarded high.
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!

We have no means to save
Our children from the grave.
Though cure-alls line our shelves,
We cannot save ourselves.
"Come, come!" the sad bells cry.
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!

Keywords/Tags: litany, plague, coronavirus, disease, illness, death, rich, poor, old, young, believers, nonbelievers, Christians, nuns, popes, bishops, pastors, fear, despair, dismay

Let's play infinity.

Let's say this isn't enough,

this lesson in rough you've given me.

Let's say I stay for you

Rain affection and love
to be left in the dust, and withering.

Trust that the lust for eternity,
burdening you,
doesn't weigh this impatient delivery

Trust in the pain
as a product of growth.

Know that if I say "No"
that makes me an enemy.

But I know what I know.

Birds won't fly, where the seed won't grow.

Hurt this time, I return, to receive
a return to reprise, and a look in your eye.
You know.

We burned out slow.

We'll turn out fine
at the end of the show.

I'll just go
I'll hope you write every line
in the life that I want you to know,

and I'll write my little litany.
No love lost into infinity.

I'll just go.

I'll just go.

So there's this new fad diet
The Diet of Worms.....
Can you tell me bout it doc?
Is it good for your health?

And I don't quite understand.
Is it the worms we eat
or do we eat dirt and sand?  

In any case it sounds expensive.  
10+% of everything I earn?
And you have to commit
your entire life or
according to this pamphlet
"your soul will surely burn"?  Wow...must really work!  

But tell me has the FDA approved, found the claims
to be true?  Any side effects, complications? Could I
possibly turn blue?  

And why were no American researchers and experts on the team that concocted this diet?
OK OK doc I'll let you talk,
I'll be quiet......

"I've taken it on faith that my patients who've tried it swear that its a miracle....I have no personal experience with it ...give it a shot who knows it might work.".

Hmmmm OK.

"But I heard they have a litany of products so beware that your investment doesn't soon quadruple in size."

Thanks for the visit doc, Ill take it under advice.  I think I might....... especially if there's a refund if I don't like it after trying it and don't think it worth the price.

On the riverbanks I toasted the moon
between smooth pebbles and weeds
the silent silver bells tolling out
in tandem with your cries. Daddy
don’t you want more, more, more—
         Promethazine Queen and ****** King
your beloved subjects, beatnik
so low compared to New Critics
the antithesis to the highs neither
He, She, nor I have reached yet!
Religious visions in the soup kitchen!
          Finding God in the backs of cars
while racing to the back doors
of the hospital her cream colored wings,
found new heights when you OD’d
the backseat confessional as we raced
along toll roads, laughing, out the window towards sea
God you cried out, won’t you dance with me?
Hell right at your feet, yeah sure, I heard
and then out we rolled, down the hills,
into the fishy sewers, their haven
and I wondered is heaven fish chomping
at the bit, and at our toes?
            I’ll never know, but on these riverbanks
I start to. On our private shores
transferring from one bank to
another, promising, ***
that our memories are safe
locked inside metal storage lockers,
with police men wearing collars
and every single American dancing
the electric slide to get in with a four
digit pin, they want priceless for the night
for the price of a hundred year of their lives!
They beg for skin to bone loans,
millions of them, something to eat,
chicken—cowards, liars, and thieves
we run on getting drunk with the government
coerced each other, just stick in it, just
stick in, I am wet for the American
dream, and Trump’s toupee, his orange
lips salivating after me, grab me by the *****!
         Or at the very least release me, us,
the collective minds of our future gen
little boys and girls that will always
have to wonder, why? Did no one like them
and what kind of sins have their
fathers committed towards their mothers,
allegations, perpetuations, I just want
out of my own ******* skin!!!
So every night, before dying
I sleep with chocolate girls melting
into their Hershey *******
their chocolate kisses
or find guys whose vision is
both of us strapped up from the ceiling
Mary and Magdalene, save your children.

you are my alarm clock,
the vertical curve on the corner of my lip,

but you are not the urgent tap against my skin,
not the creases between my brows.

you are a tabloid magazine,
a stifling bank of encounters,
but not the ringing repetition
of electronic dance music.

you are a pair of socks with stains on them,
the warmth of the sun licking my back,

but you can never be a filthy fingernail,
and you will never be the bottom of a single serve of whiskey.

Leaves singing their mourning song
beneath my weight after the betrayal
of the seasons' petals –
falling as men
falling back in my hometown
from the top of the parking deck; men–
falling as petals
falling from their places amongst the roses
in my grandmother's greenhouse.
        Both calling home to ground.

I forgive annihilation.
I forgive eradication.
I forgive termination, cessation, exhumation,
and I forgive myself
for ever being foolish enough
to believe that death owed me
an apology in the first place.
        *Ashes to ashes, dust to dust