THE GRANDMOTHER OCCUPIES
Sucking cider through a purple straw,
beside her sporting on the green,
her grandchild thirsty for love.
"When are you going to take me to the city Nani?"
"When are you going to name the happy day?"
sang the child eagerly.
"Oh you great big mountainous girl!
Full of fiery strength, whatever the weather
We shall make it together
Where the people have occupied the city."
In her blanched beauty, seated in a silver deck chair
with complacent socialist ways,
Grandmother usually pleased the public like a play.
But this entreaty she could not deny
for it came from the gods through the child.
Why did I afflict this child
with fanciful paisley dreams of liberation,
occupation and all kinds of social change
which I in my lifetime will never see?
But God is looking right at me.
Right now.
So she chimed, "Let us be on our way my child."
And Nani and child, hand in hand
made their crooked way to Londontown to witness
the beginning of the end.
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Author's Note
Occupy St. Paul's, London, the city
Other stories by Lucien Quincy Senna
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off to a great start...this piece reminds me of the catholic ways of my own grandmother...she felt that way, i think: "god is looking right at me." there's a strength in that and an innocent childlike attitude; when paired with old age, it takes on a strange absurd quality which you convey here masterly.
My consciousness is occupied with:
'it came from the gods through the child'
'this child / with fanciful paisley dreams of liberation, / occupation and all kinds of social change'
'God is looking right at me / Right now'
And more.
Thanks to your poetry.
Thank you for your kind comments. I must pay homage to my own Irish grandmother who was once a card carrying Communist during the Easter uprising but became a cynical, disappointed, disaffected old woman. Born at the wrong time but gifted.
Hope it's the beginning of the beginning. One more fine piece in a growing Occupy literature. Anyone willing to put together a chapbook? I'll pub. it via Lulu. *
Pub it wherever you like. I think it's a great idea for authors and poets to come together for a chapbook on the Occupy movement.
Another fine comment on how imperative it is to Occupy. *
Great point of view and lovely choice of words. I agree, a pub of occupy poems would really rock! I hope it happens, Jack and Lucien.
Fave.
splendid *
"paisley dreams of liberation"
Good phrase!
What a stunning ending here. I really enjoyed: "blanched beauty"
and "paisley dreams of liberation". What a description.