AS WAS THEN.

A BOY AND HIS GRANDMOTHER'S TALES.

He was all over
Me like a summer

Heat back then, Grandma
Said, he couldn’t take

His eyes or hands off
Me and he’d stand by

The stage door where I
Was a dancer and

Bring me flowers, chocs
And smiles and whispered

Wants and he’d tell me
Of the war and the

Darn awful sights and
How he’d seen men with

No arms, legs or heads
And I’d let him kiss

Me and take me to
The cinema and

Walk me back home and
Fondle me slightly

Not too heavy and
Off he’d go wagging

His tail like some dog
Smelling the heat and

I would watch him go
Sensing a warm glow.

Look at him now though,
Henry, Grandma said,

Staring at Grandpa
In his old armchair

Sleeping, his mouth half
Open, a thinly

Hand rolled cigarette
Hanging there from his

Lower lip unlit,
He sleeps like a bat

In winter now and
Snores like a pig in

A trough. But you see
Only Grandpa, see

Him as he was, not
As Grandma sees him

Now, her dreams wasted
Away, the love of

Her life, sleeping cold
Towards death, married

In his deep dreams to
Another young girl,

Not his present wife.

Reviews

[just rose.]

Another stunning depiction of the march of time and age. What happens to all these energies from earlier times? They live on somewhere, because they can never be destroyed nor forgotten - in some space is still the magic expanse of a date these two had sixty years before. I often wonder what time would be like were it not linear. You play with that notion here, and how the grandchild needs to have his own experiences to understand.