rickety, tittering old fool
balanced himself precariously in a rusted iron chair
perched on his decaying central Texas porch
and refused to abandon his crotchety existence.
(My kind of hero.)
spit his brackish black chewing drool
into the fifteen year-old metal coffee can beside him,
while I wondered if "Tex-Sav" coffee
could even still be bought.
sneered at the Austin August sun
which couldn’t convince him to shed his full-length over-alls
for something more modern and ventilated.
Not that I held much hope after July had failed again that year.
sonared his big soft spotted ears in on the Georgia
weatherman cooing preach tree blossom indexes,
and pretended he didn’t hear Grandma yelling.
grinned confusion when Mom became indignant
after I’d had one too many of his cure-all lemon drops.
pomised me that a girl like me
could was strong enough to do anything she wanted
so long as she learned to read and loved to learn.
insisted I learn to cry inside like him,
and that the first three letters of funeral
always spell fun.
I just wasn’t ready or willing to test that one.
 |
| My Grandpa Lindemann with my Uncle Buddy and my Mom circa 1955ish. He wore the same brand of overalls for 50+ years.
*A previous version of this poem is featured a collection of poems, The Nightshade Lexicon:
A complete book of worthless poetry for the common hominid. Available on Amazon for $0.99 or Free in Kindle Unlimited. |
No comments:
Post a Comment