Three poems by John Archer

Here are three poems by John Archer, the Concord, N.H., man who will have his first book of poems published in the fall as he nears his 100th birthday.

The Birthday

Dorothy Osborne today will be
The prize-winning age of a hundred and three,
Which makes her the QUEEN in full royalty.
Nonagenarians form her court
Where growing old is the favorite sport.
Born in the nineteenth, only she
Has lived to see a third century.

My Protest

My body is planning my demise,
Thinking to make it a surprise.
It’s all part of a terminal game
With nobody there to take the blame.
If I’m expected to sit and wait,
Meekly to accept my fate,
I hereby protest against evolution
For not finding a better solution
Than to wipe out my generation
In order to renew the population.
The opposite to die is to live forever,
But don’t start counting on that endeavor.

My Statement

Does God exist or does He not?
The answer for me is that God is a thought.
I believe in what I see and feel,
I believe in thoughts because thoughts are real.
But I don’t believe that any thought
Can reach to be what it is not.
Infinite, eternal and divine
Are general notions in my mind.
I can think those things, but not relate
To what is clearly beyond my state.
As a finite being of limited duration,
I’m a human and not divine creation.

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