H: It's Not The Dying. It's The Getting Old.

Tucked away in ageing sitting rooms,
allowed no more than They see right;
fallen from grace into retirement,
without real love and bereft of pity.

Shell like figures or just self-containing:
planted in a seat today, tomorrow
and next week. No means of self-fulfilment,
a dreary empty life you lead.

Wednesday and Saturday: Oh, what joy!
Bingo for an hour. Yet most don't play,
no means to do so - a lack of
natures basic gifts.

The old routine has few real changes,
no stimulation for your ageing minds.
All sitting quietly, happiness lost through
the course of time. Waiting for the end of day.

Tea and biscuit at half past ten, missed on
'special' bath days. Into dinner, twelve o'clock.
Out for quarter to one. More sitting watching
Children's telly, until the need to wee prevails.

The urge to go repeatedly shunned -
self expression isn't enough. That's all right,
the chair can soak it up. It does just that.
The odour spreads, you're washed and into bed clothes.

Total stranger washing your bum, then your
front bits too, all dignity discarded.
'It's just routine, OK?' You nod then
sit in the chair until the tea arrives.

It comes, you spill it: more changes required,
your clothes all stained and smelly.
Yet the family bring no more; the tags are
loose and broken, they're put in someone else's drawer.

Carted to tea, there with more faces. Seen every day but
no-one remembers. Hello, how are you? Are you new?
Slopping the food so that little goes in - all on the table;
the bib is removed and back to the chair.

There until bedtime, impatient ones first:
the fuss and the whinging force their case, no-one
can take any more. Most just sit there, waiting;
for what they do not know.

Up in the lift, into your room. On the commode and
changed once again. The washes are done, hands,
face and bum. Straight in to bed and the light flicked off..
'Goodnight,' they call, then down the hall.

(On to another inmate.)