Mar 2019
GRANDFATHER CLOCK
"When granda died
he turned into a clock!"
I was 7 or so, so this seemed
an acceptable fact.
"Oh we still kept him in the corner
wound him up every night."
I glanced at the nothing in the corner.
There was only a slab of sunlight dozing.
"Oh we had to pawn him
a long time ago!"
I gasped: "Noooo!"
"Oh he had to go
he had only one hand
and his pendulum
was broken."
Sam the dog barks
asks if I am coming out to play.
I of course am
coming out to play.
Auntie Nellie scolds
Uncle Michael.
"For God's sake Mikey
will ya ****** well stop!"
Mikey sticks his tongue in cheek
a characteristic tic.
"Can't ya see the poor child is
ejeet enough to believe ya!"
Whenever later I chance to meet
a clock that could be my granda
I touch its face tenderly
stroke the mottled glass
"Ahhh Granda!" I smile
giving him a great big hug.
"TickTock!" says granda
"**** ****!"
"When granda died
he turned into a clock!"
I was 7 or so, so this seemed
an acceptable fact.
"Oh we still kept him in the corner
wound him up every night."
I glanced at the nothing in the corner.
There was only a slab of sunlight dozing.
"Oh we had to pawn him
a long time ago!"
I gasped: "Noooo!"
"Oh he had to go
he had only one hand
and his pendulum
was broken."
Sam the dog barks
asks if I am coming out to play.
I of course am
coming out to play.
Auntie Nellie scolds
Uncle Michael.
"For God's sake Mikey
will ya ****** well stop!"
Mikey sticks his tongue in cheek
a characteristic tic.
"Can't ya see the poor child is
ejeet enough to believe ya!"
Whenever later I chance to meet
a clock that could be my granda
I touch its face tenderly
stroke the mottled glass
"Ahhh Granda!" I smile
giving him a great big hug.
"TickTock!" says granda
"**** ****!"
My da's da died before I was born so I never knew him...only shards of stories...fragments of who he might have been. I used to walk around the farm imagining him doing the exact same back in the day of say 1922. When I was as small as stupid and as impressionable as hell my uncle would answer a normal question about my granda with a tall tale such as this. He'd tell me the most surreal things with a straight poker face and I love him so much I believed anything and everything he'd make up. If my father gave me his love of poetry...it was Uncle Mikey who made me one with all his glorious making up! Nellie used to scold him about this but it didn't stop him as the words coming out of his mouth grew into an enchanted entangled forest. He was the treasure trove of my childhood and I was rich beyond my wildest dreams.
