Bullets for Boomers

This is the first in a series of poems about what it's like to be a part of the infamous Boomer generation.

Bullet Proof

It can be as simple

As a reflection in a shop window.

Brief, a blink.

Or the unexpected vision in a shave fogged mirror.

Quick like a bullet that

Strikes before the sound of

The explosion reaches the target

It too opens a wound.

The narrow fine pointed image

Pierces the eye and fragments

Before you can shield yourself

With the lies of your youth.

It shatters your denial

Without a sound.

The image is the least of it.

The saggy blotchy vision.

What happened to that smooth

Pure shield you so

Flagrantly abused with

The certainty of forever-ness

So adored by mothers and lovers

Kissed and caressed?

It was not the passionate breath of others that

Charred and desiccated the mask

You wore so confidently. The mask

That slipped in an instant that took years

Of uncertainty, stress and worry to create.

It is the flabby casing

Of the bullet in the mirror.

In an instant it’s all revealed

Like an onion pealed leaf upon leaf.

The spring in your step

Now a hollow stiff stride that shivers

On the edge of collapse.

The quick rejoinder plucked from a memory

That glowed with stand-by readiness now

fingered and pried from ossified synapses

that refuse to fire when needed.

The mop of hair combed and coiffed,

The signboard of your difference,

Gone or near gone

A shadow of strings

Vainly trying to shield your pate

From the screaming mirror.

It’s all there in the tearing laceration

Suppurating passion oozing now

Through your once wet hardness.

Nipples like spear points

Shivering with desire, now flaccid

Memories. The metal jacket of time

Searing the sweetness of youthful

Ignorance with the unrelenting cynicism of experience,

Of fear and disappointment, of wasted talent and time.

The final moment within the glimpse,

The ultimate sadness of a truth hidden from

The beginning of your awareness.

An odds defying arrogance without which

You would have long ago laid down and died

In anticipation of the strike. You turn, even now,

Trying to hide from the fact

That you are not,

Never were

Or never will be

Bullet proof.