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Oscar Brown, Jr.

OLD QUESTION

How can I know passion

In so sweet a fashion

Without falling very much in love?

How can I be caring

Sensuously sharing

Without feeling all of the above?


Nights as I adore you

How can I be sure to

Keep myself from going overboard

Deep into an ocean

Of intense devotion

How can my true feelings be ignored?


I don't fake affection

Intimate connection

Therefore, tends to rekindle desire

That flaming obsession

That burned for expression

When what's now a smolder was afire


Prone to rediscover

My role as a lover

In a play from which I had retired

With a leading lady

Who was just a baby

When I gave these acts what they required


Once an artful dodger

Now one more old codger

Rolling where I ought to set and rock

Striving to recapture

Remnants of a rapture

I hid in back of old age's clock


I know time will tattle

And that in this battle

I don't function on a level field

Though my kiss and hug'll

Evidence some struggle

In the end we old boys have to yield


Making love is thrilling

And the mind is willing

But, alas, sweet lass the flesh is weak

For no other reason

Than it is the season

When I've gone away beyond my peak


Being with you bedded

Down like newly wedded

I'm somewhat unsettled in my soul

By my conscience harassed

And indeed embarrassed

Like a thief who's caught with something stole


What I'm re-enacting

I can feel impacting

Where sweet sentiment becomes sincere

Where flirtatious notions

Turn to strong emotions

Which is just exactly what I fear


I'm in poor condition

For re-imposition

Of love's discipline and jealous rule

All those strains and stresses

With which love possesses

Turning me into a damned old fool


My mirror reminds me

That my peers will find me

Just another pitiful poor sap

Who should be in sleeping

Instead of out leaping

To broad jump the generation gap


The simply outrageous

Difference in our ages

Will generate gossip, that's for sure

Some people are bound to

Condemn and denounce you

And imply your motives are impure


Members of your family

Will be sure to damn me

As my kinfolk go to damning, too

They'll say we were never

Born to be together

And criticize everything we do


Knowing what's forbidden

We've kept ourselves hidden

Out of sight from everybody else

I have found, however

I am not so clever

I can keep our secret from myself


I hear cupid calling

And feel myself falling

Under the enchantments you prepare

As with every gesture

You increase the pressure

To explode into a love affair


If I had the wit to

Walk away and quit you

Before I'm completely in your pow'r

Were I that sagacious

Then, my goodness gracious

I'd be out of here within the hour


I fear should I linger

Wrapped around your finger

I'll be wound up in a dizzy whirl

Wheezing in my dotage

To provide high voltage

Satisfactions to a busy girl


Try as best I might to

Manfully excite you

Is it in my arms that you belong?

Have I still the sinew

Sufficient to win you

From some younger man who's going strong?


You have ways to pet me

Always apt to get me

Eager to perform my very best

Every bit as frisky

As I was pre-sixty

(At the risk of cardiac arrest)


Pleasure you keep giving

Make life so worth living

That I 'm moved to take most any chance

Rational or insane

In order to remain

With you under any circumstance


I'm as set to partake

Of whatever heartache

May await me just beyond the bend

As I am to languish

In whatever anguish

Lies between here and ultimate end


So let gossips gabble

Let the kinfolk babble

Let tomorrow threaten its defeats

Let the judges scold an'

Call me "dirty old man"

I still have my appetite for sweets


I intend to tarry

Here with you and marry

In whatever way we both agree

I will summon courage

To sincerely cherish

And thank God for sending you to me


How can I know passion

In so sweet a fashion

Without falling very much in love?

How can I be sharing

Sensuously caring

Without feeling all of the above?


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