James and Jen
Old James said: ‘Do you recall when we were small,
Those days when our relations came to call,
When we were dressed up in our neatest best
And it was very seriously impressed
Upon us that we must be very good?’
‘Yes, and more or less we did just as we should
Except when bored,’ replied his sister Jen,
Now settling down to I remember when...
‘God, they were tedious, that aged lot,
All refugees from somewhere time forgot.
Aunt Winn, who was enormous; Uncle Mark,
Who chain-smoked, and whose laugh was like a bark,
And Granny May, who moaned about her ills;
Her handbag rattled with a thousand pills.’
‘Oh yes, and Grandpa Ted, whose face was puce,
Who talked about politics, and whose clothes hung loose,
Like on a scarecrow. He had skinny arms,
While Aunt Vi acted like she still had charms.
She died of something that mum would not name,
And at her funeral I thought it a shame
That just eight people came, including us.
Mum told us she’d not wanted any fuss.’
‘Oh those old folk, whose regular visitations
Got printed deep on young imaginations.
They came in pairs, or sometimes just alone,
And always used to tell us that we’d grown,
As though it was a talent, though Aunt B
(Short for Beatrix) said it most accusingly
As though she thought the world should be arranged
In some way so that nothing ever changed.
How very odd old people were back then.’
To which James answered: ‘Maybe, Jen,
But I went round to Moira’s yesterday,
And her young Grace was called in from her play
To be introduced, and she was most polite,
And when I said – I forget what – something trite -
She stared at me with the clear eyes of youth,
Those brutal innocent eyes that see the truth,
And I, by those killer eyes was clearly told
I was an alien from the planet Old.
And that’s the truth. Now don’t you make a fuss,
But - where are the oddities now? My dear, They’re us.'
George Simmers
If you have any thoughts
about this poem, George Simmers
would like to hear them
