Grandfather Poems

How neatly a cat sleeps,
sleeps with its paws and its posture,
sleeps with its wicked claws,
and with its unfeeling blood,
...

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.
...

To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
...

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
...

Although it is a cold evening,
down by one of the fishhouses
an old man sits netting,
his net, in the gloaming almost invisible,
...

Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts
Noplace to shit but sand channel ruts
...

Taped to the wall of my cell are 47 pictures: 47 black
faces: my father, mother, grandmothers (1 dead) , grand-
fathers (both dead) , brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts,
cousins (1st and 2nd) , nieces, and nephews.They stare
...

He was as old as my grandfather and I, just twelve.
Marriage meant nothing to me, not even a new cheeram.
He lived in penance and I, just a little child, tended the aashram,
Never cared for, not even acknowledged of my existence.
...

'Angels of the love affair, do you know that other,
the dark one, that other me? '

1. ANGEL OF FIRE AND GENITALS
...

For a Child of 1918

My grandfather said to me
as we sat on the wagon seat,
...

A single rose with thorny stem
On mother nature`s tattered hem
Which no-one cares to steal away
So left to wither and decay
...

it's 1962 March 28th
I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
night is falling
I never knew I liked
...

Write down !
I am an Arab
And my identity card number is fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the ninth will come after a summer
Will you be angry?
...

Old leaves have no defence against the wind.
A gray hawk is October's inner cry.
The bells of Salem church play elegies.
Distance becomes a single snowflake's fall.
...

............sitting here in the stillness
.............................staring
...............staring out the window
...at darkness my friend and my foe.
...

He’s active as quicksilver,
Ageless as the sun,
Agile as a stream,
And alert as a bird in springtime.
...

Portate bien,
behave yourself you always said to me.
I behaved myself
when others were warm in winter
...

"Sit in my hand."
I'm ten.
I can't see him,
but I hear him breathing
...

She taught me what her uncle once taught her:
How easily the biggest coal block split
If you got the grain and the hammer angled right.
...

[Brazil. A friend of the writer is speaking.]


Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)—
...

Colonial paper has torn!
With a hole for bedbugs to hide,
Everywhere, prisoners eating infested corn,
In jailhouse where grandfather decide,
...

The fact is i am finally a grandfather, hence i am 37 years old and for this reason if you are between the ages of 35 and 150 years old you are finally a grandfather and as a result it makes me to be proud of who i really am for this matter.

Koena F. Mokoena
...

Chapter 11: The Butcher At The Corner

The butcher at the corner was always trying to teach my grandfather new words in Italian. My grandfather was of Irish and German descent, but he always took the time to try and learn a few words so the next time he came into the shop, he could greet ‘Nick' in a few words from his native tongue. Nick in turned learned a few Irish limericks from my grandfather, interesting to be sure, but probably not stories he could tell around the dinner table at home.
...

The fact is i am finally a grandfather, hence in my country of South Africa if you are in between the ages of 18 and 35 you are considered as a man and for this reason i am finally a grandfather, because i am between the ages of 35 and 150 and as a result i am 36 years old for this matter.
...

The fact is i am finally a grandfather, hence i am 36 years old and for this reason in my country of South Africa and as a result if you are between the ages of 18 and 35 you are a real man for this matter.
The fact is according to my own point of view if you are between the ages of 35 and 150 years, hence you are finally a grandfather and for this reason the people between the above ages are considered old and as a result i am one of them for this matter.
...

Then I was 12 years old, my grandfather told me, ‘My father was a revolutionary. He broke the left leg of Pratap Roy, Zamindar of Nadia and right leg of Rana Thakur, Zamindar of Srirampur and fled away. We hardly found his trace. When the situations became normal, he appeared before us in guise of a monk'.

Pratap was cruel and Rana was ruthless. Shiv Pundit could never tolerate the humiliation and suppression of the innocent subjects. He worshipped ‘Das Kapital' for salvation and chanted Vedic Hymns in the Shiva Temple to earn his bread and butter. We were priests of the said temple for seven generations. Shiv Pundit was hardly a materialistic socialist but rather a revolutionary socialist. He led an aesthetic life during his final days.
...

In the realm of family, a bond so grand,
Where generations intertwine, hand in hand.
A grandfather's love, a guiding light,
A grandson's presence, pure delight.
...

Wide-eyed in wonder,
Ella beholds the world.
'How old are you? '
her grandfather asks.
...

Grandfather's house, knocked to the ground - to dust:
The windows wept when the bulldozer came
Timeworn and dirty and wheezing black smoke,
Just like the drab mills where grandfather moiled.
...

Why do you do what you do?

I am human, your brother, your sister
A mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, a friend
...