GRANDFATHER CLOCK

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 bloody 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 "bong bONG!"

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Written by

donall-dempsey

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Written by

donall-dempsey

Published

Mar 3, 2019

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Notes: 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.

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