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[Droplet]

I found this poem in Big Issue, issue number 995:

The Pensioner
Her eyes rest riveted
far beyonder the meagre boundaries
of her shabby walls,
past thye drooping potted plant
past the brick wall
dividing her wall
from their wall

that wall is no more hers
that this sole room
in which she sleeps and eats
and murders time,
shovelling coal into a dead ash fire
and food into a dying body
to postpone its span
a little.

by
Paula Phelan.

Edited by Droplet, 22 April 2012 - 10:07 AM.

[johnross47]

Rather depressing view of pensioners. Unfortunately it probably does apply to a huge number of us. For myself becoming a pensioner was a moment of freedom, almost a return to the arresponsibility of childhood. (clever little spell checker says arresponsibility doesn't exist....it has no imagination) You suddenly have the time to do things without having to turn up every Monday to work for somebody else's profit. I now have the time to run my diet through cron-o-meter, to go for a run when the sun shines instead of when I have to. I have the advantage of sufficient income and I live in a peaceful rural area. If I had only the state pension in a grubby inner city area my life might be like the poem. Part of improving life expectancy for all has be improving retirement income for all.