My grandfather on my father's side was a bit of a spaz. He was born in the position of never having to work in his life but by the time he passed on he had destroyed the family fortune trying to become a poet. Millions were spent vanity publishing extremely expensive books of conceptual poetry with a word every six or seven pages.
Its one of the reasons I'm not a terribly big fan of poetry.
My Grandfather wrote a sad poem about losing his potency and being unable to make it with red-haired lover and sent it to my Dad. It was called:
'Somerton Garden'
This side the valley are
Tall grasses in sunlight
The other side shadows
Of hurrying clouds.
This day of hot bright sun
For ever and forever I'm undone
Laura asked for nourishing love
In vain I've tried to let it flow
To no response.
July 18 1990
My dad's immediate reaction to reading this was to pen:
Alas!
Ginger
Beard and piggy
Eyes
No longer stir what
Lies
Behind my
Flies.
2 comments:
Any chance of your Dad's poetry being published? I like that much better, along with the canon of Ogden Nash, which includes:
'The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk'
and his Ode To A Baby:
'A bit of talcum
Is always walcum.'
Sadly he didn't really have a 'collected works' it was more of the occasional jotting to annoy his father.
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