My good buddy and regular poetry contributor Son of Sonnet launched his new Locals page last week at https://sonofsonnet.locals.com/.  It’s $10 a month for all sorts of goodies—poems, poetry readings, etc.  And the price per month drops as more users sign up.

As one of the chosen subscribers, I recommended a topic for a poem:  my hilarious little release Péchés d’âge moyen, a short collection of twelve original piano miniatures.  Son—as always—delivered the goods.

To be clear, this wasn’t an easy assignment:  he had to write a poem based on twelve very short piano pieces that were largely written (initially) as part of an inside joke on the Internet.  He consulted me on a few elements of the poem, including the cover art, an original painting of mine called “Apple Picking.”

With that, I give you—reprinted with permission from the poet—“The Sins of Middle Age” (originally published at https://sonofsonnet.locals.com/ on Wednesday, 16 March 2022):

The Sins of Middle Age
By Son of Sonnet
Prompt by Tyler Cook

An apple picked by hand,
Which twinkles in the eyes,
Contains the life that spans
Until the holder dies.

This man, he dreams of blessed lands:
Of times in which he wished to be.
The essence of the desert sands
Were all he saw among the trees.

He wrote of what he yearned on paper scraps,
But always was he stuck in fantasy.
Collections of his paper turned to maps
Of his evolving grand theocracy.