Old Ray gets up this morning
feeling a little bit let-me- fix-the-world
so he turns to his wife Old Mary
who’s reading the news in her iPad
and he resurrects his suspicion
she’s gone deaf recently

So he stands to her right and calls out her name
No answer
So he stands to her left and calls out her name
No answer
So he goes behind her and shouts out her name
and Mary, without looking up, says calmly:
“For the third and last time, Ray -
what do you want?”

And Ray
who has heard no answer thrice
thinks to himself:
*Poor Old Mary,
after all these years,
she’s indeed lost her hearing

Michael sent his uncle Old Jim to the Greenland Retirement Village on 19 January 2014. The next day, Michael visited his Uncle and also spoke with the staff. The monologues below relate events from two perspectives.*


Senior Staff :
Your Uncle seems very much at ease
in our retirement home
Many residents are nervous and uncertain
on their first days but your Uncle
seems to feel very much at home
But just one thing we observed though:
when we bring him out to rest on a chair
he leans a little to the left
and we so promptly help him sit straight;
and then he sways a little to the right
and we swiftly help him sit straight
for we don't want him to fall -
and this goes on; we’d need
to get a specialist in
to see if his spine is OK



Old Jim:
I don’t mind it here – they take good care of me
What did they tell you?
My spine? My ****!
These ******* don’t le me ****!

Camelot was really a place
where you parked camels –
yeah, the Egyptians traded everywhere;
and sure the round table was true –
King Arthur asked Sir Circumference to
fashion him a round table
because, as a matter of strategy,
it’s never good to be cornered

And what did the Egyptians do
after they parked their camels at Camelot?
Oh, they enjoyed the knight life
and the Musical
and they eyeballed Guinevere and Julie Andrews

So really, in spite of Thomas Malory
and Richard Harris and Richard Burton
in spite of all skills literary and vocal,
and Hollywood special effects -
Camelot was just a night club;
the English have always loved a good drink

When Mr Dracula goes out to work
on his permanent night shifts,
Mrs Dracula checks to make sure
her hubby’s taken his coffin syrup
and he’s got his coat on
and she warns him:
“You stay away from the girl necks door!”
She reminds him if he needs
to cross the seas
he should use the blood vessels

And the Dracula Kids too
(and their visiting drug ******
Auntie Drugula)
come to the door
and hang about wherever they can
to see Mr Dracula go off to work
driving off in his
Mobile Blood Unit
and they all bite each other
as they flap goodbye

And if you should wonder why
the Dracula family is so close
much more than most ****** normal families, well –
Blood is thicker than water – that’s why!

*Well, fangcy that!

The other day
my colleague came up to me
with his iPad
and he said, “You love Rembrandt?”
“Uh ha,” I said
“Well, look at this google image.
This is Rembrandt’s Parents Making Love”
And I looked at the image he had conjured
and sure enough there was a portrait of
Rembrandt’s parents in bed, you know,
doing that, doing it…
Rembrandt’s Parents Making Love

And I protested: “How can that be?
That’s not a Rembrandt, no!”
“Sure it is,” said my colleague.
*“That’s what they are making.
It's definitely an artist’s conception.”

it is Little Amy’s
first set of crayons
and so she grabs one
and scrawls
like mad and crazy
on the sketch pad
on the floor and on the walls;
and the crayon discovers
in a matter of hours
what humans take years to understand:
*life is short

Yeah guys, just back from the doctor’s
Turns out he’s worked at Apple
and Samsung and such –
he’s really into technology and all that,
you know
the latest stuff, really
“The heart,” he pronounced,
“is really a technology”

anyway, he’s given me
a pacemaker for me heart
and the doc, he said also
it’s state-of-the-art technology
so I can also download apps for my liver,
kidneys and my bowels
if needs be
yeah, I really feel good
inside out and all the way down