I've been looking through the daily poems I used to write between 2000 and 2004, when I worked at Kohl's Distribution Center.  Since my goal was a poem every day, I usually just threw any old thing together in the morning, because I had to be at work at six AM.  Some I wrote are "almost good", and could be improved; some of them, although the rhyme scheme and meter might be perfect, are trivial and downright stupid.  

I don't consider the one I'm sharing to be "good" in any way, but I know what triggered it.  My knees were never a problem until I worked at Kohl's.  They popped and cracked, but I don't think I had any real pain until 2002.  After three years at Kohl's spending every day walking on concrete as fast as I could, I was in incredible pain by end of each day.  I wrote a few whiny, self-pitying poems like this one. 

WHILE YOU CAN

February 4, 2004

Walk while you can, young person; 

Frolic and jump and play.

For once you get arthritis, dear,

All that just goes away.

Bad health comes to haunt you,

Sometimes without a warning.

Before you know it, you are taking

Medicines each morning.

Read every day, my children; 

Cherish what books you find.

Age does a thing to vision.

And you may end up blind.

Aches and pains will visit.

Each dawn, I wake with pain.

I limp and take my Tylenol

And try not to complain.

Life is still worth living,

And until things get worse,

I will not pack my bags to leave,

So do not send the hearse.

Isn't that silly?  And this is AFTER I changed a few things in the lines.  I can't even believe I saved some of these.  It gets worse, though:  I stumbled across one poem I wrote about toe fungus.  I won't be sharing that one.

Peace.