COMFORTABLY OLD by Dennis Doph

Ahhhhhh
We dream of days gone by
Johnny Ma'Man
You were one hairychested handsome Navy-boy hunk
Covered forehead to hoof with an Annapolis tan
Daring
Even one plebe to come within three feet of your bunk
Those uncomfortable years
In the Hanoi Hilton Alone Aloof
Practicing glacial alonement
with your chastening glare
Emerging
Gloriously Teeth flashing A stud to the hoof
The look of immortals in your impreturbable stare

But now
You're Old Old Old Man Johnny
Thirty-five years older than your boyish opponent
Pretending you're The Man
Pretending you're nothing like toxic and phony
Logical successor to Team Bush
Oldness posing as comfortable atonement

You came back to the States
You dumped your first wife
Rose by the coattails of defeated Goldwater
In Sunbelt Arizona you spent most of your life
Married a beer heiress who looked more like your daughter
Entered the Senate
Rose plenty of gorge
Proclaiming loudly (sometimes shrieking)
You're the Man with a Difference
You got shaken out by the minions of George
Who claimed you got a Black Baby on the wrong side of the fence

Now you're Old Old Old Man John
Standing firmly behind all your enemy's mistakes
Even older than Ronnie when he rose to the Crown
You've stripped all your gears and lost most of your brakes
What you gained going up you have lost going down
Hairy-chested stud of yore gone like a breath
Seventysomething bulk draws you down into sleep
Totter into idolatry which is something like death
Rocked in the cradle of the Dubious Deep

So
Get into denial of the Young and the Raw
Those who hate your war; and your tremors and strokes
Stick seventy-two soft years in our craw
To be Comfortably Old doesn't mean you're Just Folks