Explosion
An explosion is always right because
Gramps can't argue with an explosion.
If he starts up at Thanksgiving dinner
You and him might argue but he can't
Argue with an explosion you set off.
Same thing as when Gramps buys
A cell phone and you have to set off
An explosion or when Gramps goes
On a trip down memory lane again
You have to set off an explosion.
What if Gramps keeps continuously
Bungling old time expressions like
It is two sides of the same horse?
You must set off another explosion,
You got to so stop your blubbering.
Sleepless
Gramps is scared that he might
Forget his Social Security Number
So tossing and turning like a ship
Heavy laden he keeps reciting
His Social Security Number to
Himself until the casement glows
A glimmering square (Tennyson.)
The sympathy for an old man created by these poems—which are really one poem—lies outside the poems, i.e., with the reader. And to end with the slightly wrong quote (though maybe “grow” in some Tennyson ms. has been found to be “glow” but is probably there for the alliteration or because the smug “you” is fallible after all) brings the sympathy into the “you” (who isn’t even part of the second poem). These are lovely sad poems, and one at that.
Posted by: Anne Harding Woodworth | October 01, 2022 at 07:08 AM
made me think of my gramps, 50 years back. thx.
Posted by: michael foldes | October 01, 2022 at 08:36 AM