Friday is my birthday.

And I love this poem, so it's getting posted.

40 poems in 40 years and 40 mules thrown in for good measure

Another century older,
my, my, where does the time go?
I can remember the good old days
when PM meant Post Mortem
and BC was short for Beelzebub's Crabcakes,
and I lived with 40 mules in the same house
with 40 wives
with 40 children each,
and when you killed somebody
they stayed dead
oh, the sweetbreads of nostalgia!

Now all it means to have a birthday
is another year facing the same failures:
children who never call,
40 ex-wives who call all the time
because the support payment's late,
insurance men who call
just to make sure the premiums keep coming
and to see if I'm maybe slipping
just a little bit,
and the people from the IRS
or the IRA
(I never could keep them straight)
who threaten me with nearsighted lawyers
with bad breath
and guns
and the lady who calls night and day
about that subscription to Time magazine
I ordered but haven't paid in years,
I tell them all the same thing:

It's not the years that give me chest pains,
chest pains and arthritis
and lumbago
and pins and needles so bad
I call them Caesar's spears
it's all the damn phone calls
the phone calls and the birthdays.

If I could afford it, I'd take a vacation,
by God I would,
someplace warm
with nude beaches
and a nightlife for when the sun goes down
and those fruity drinks with the umbrellas.

But who can afford it
when there's back rent
and taxes
and so many mouths to feed
and the goddamn phone ringing every five seconds,
who's got the time?

Maybe I should call in sick a day or two
make the old man take up the slack,
for a change.

Just lay in bed
all day long
and watch the news on TV,
nothing like a nice train wreck
or a double murder
to soothe the nerves
maybe the odd political debate,
or an old episode of Dark Shadows on cable,
even if it is
only a busyman's holiday
I could sure use a change of pace,
or maybe snuggle up with my 40 mules
and catch up on my reading.

Say,
I might even get to like this,
I might call in the next day too
and the one after that,
and the one after that,

don't tempt me.

- Craig T. Hathaway