Ballade Of The Hardy Annual
Many a jest that refuses to die
Bobs up again as the seasons appear;
Deathless it hits us again in the eye-
Changeless and dull as the calendar year.
Musty and mouldy and yellow and sere,
Stronger, withal, than the sturdiest oak;
Ancient and solemn and deadly and drear-
Down with the grandmother-funeral joke!
Soon as the snow has forgotten to fly,
All through the day of the 'leathery sphere,'
Jokelets and pictures and verses we spy
All on the theme of the grandmother dear.
Bonnets, umbrellas, and buckets of beer
Please us and tickle us quite to the choke.
But-on this matter our attitude's clear-
Down with the grandmother-funeral joke!
Giggle we can at a blueberry pie;
Scream at a comedy king or ameer;
Simply guffaw when the jestermen guy
Marriage, a thing at which no one should jeer.
Things that in others elicit a tear
All of our risibles simply unyoke;
But from this stand we're unwilling to veer:
Down with the grandmother-funeral joke!
L'ENVOI
Brothers in motley, the season is here;
Small is the boon that we sadly invoke:
Butcher it, murder it, jump on its ear! -
Down with the grandmother-funeral joke!
poem by Franklin P. Adams
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Related quotes
Grandmother Told Me So
The declaration has been spoken,
For Grandmother told me so.
The darkeys have got their fetlocks broken,
For Grandmother told me so.
Oh, won't they have a lot of iron on hand!
And when the news travels,
Oh, won't it be grand!
'Twill sweep like a sugarcane over the land,
For Grandmother told me so.
American Eagle! hysterical bird!
Oh, flap your wing and crow!
The slaves are embellished--yes, that's the word,
For Grandmother told me so!
There's curious times in that ur section,
For Grandmother told me so.
They think they will have a resurrection,
For Grandmother told me so.
The penholders raving like persons insane --
The darkeys in exodus, raising cane,
And singing like martingales after a rain,
For Grandmother told me so.
But President Abe forgot Kentucky,
For Grandmother told me so.
And Geneses, too -- and that's unlucky,
For Grandmother told me so.
Malicious champagne will be open'd in vain,
Until we shall break the last ox-yoke and chain --
Till through the Benighted States freedom shall reign,
For Grandmother told me so.
poem by Henry Clay Work
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Poem for my Grandmother
By the time
I knew grandmother
She was no more
It took sisteen-years
To know
Of her pains
On that sick bed,
My sisteen-year-old
Knowingness was shocked
To hear mum narrate her past
Grandmother as indeed a great
Woman n her life time.
Each time I go to her grave
I break down and cried for her,
I wish grandmother saw
The best of me
Before she was taken to the beyond
I know she would be proud of me
Let this poem of mine
Be for her,
My great grandmother.
poem by Efe Benjamin
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Dem Bones!
My Husband's Grandmother,
who had reached the grand old age of 98 years,
died one 23rd of December,
and as her funeral couldn't be organised
until the 6th of January, the following year,
her Son asked the Funeral Director,
to explain what was happening to his Mother
over the Christmas period.
The Funeral Director in his severe black suit,
with a face even more severe,
placed a hand on the Son's shoulder, and said,
'Don't you worry, Mr Taylor,
we have a Skeleton Staff in over Christmas'.
This is a true story, but we found it to be so hilarious.
poem by Ernestine Northover
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Butterfly Laughter
In the middle of our porridge plates
There was a blue butterfly painted
And each morning we tried who should reach the
butterfly first.
Then the Grandmother said: "Do not eat the poor
butterfly."
That made us laugh.
Always she said it and always it started us laughing.
It seemed such a sweet little joke.
I was certain that one fine morning
The butterfly would fly out of our plates,
Laughing the teeniest laugh in the world,
And perch on the Grandmother's lap.
poem by Katherine Mansfield
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Though I was a mother at 21, being a grandmother makes the whole thing absolutely normal and gorgeous. The relief, the joy of being a grandmother is wonderful.
quote by Joanna Lumley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The last visit and conversion…
Here lays my grandmother
A week from: Death.
The gentle archetypal, type of grandmother
Who nursed my cries; made all things better.
Here lays, my grandmother…
In that; week before their heinous lies….
“Spoken in hellos but not goodbyes”
In that week before her untimely: Death.
Before; her cloak of life fell silently away bereft.
In isolating surrendered breaths…
In hopes and prayers…
In hopes; never-ending…
In words that were formed:
Like crusts of bread.
Floated in the mouths of the living…
Where once it was lovingly said.
That our own increments will rise conversely…
And speak from; our own deathbeds.
Shall we not all of us…
Then one day, converse, with the dead.
Here lays, my grandmother…
And to date—she is dead.
poem by Mark Heathcote
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Thanks.
Thanks to my brothers who do nothing but look out for me,
Thanks to my dad whos done all he can for me,
Thanks to my grandmother who raised me,
And,
Thanks to my mom who made me hate me,
All 4 of my brothers I know they care, but they can't save me
My dad who loved me, I couldn't save him,
My grandmother whos dying, I can't save her,
And,
My mom who is selfish, I can't change her.
I can't do anything, I tried... so self-centeredly the only thing I see left is suicide.
poem by Kill or Be killed
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Grandmother
Grandmother, oh Grandmother
Looking from above.
I need your wisdom and your balance.
Most of all I need your love.
I hear you and I see you,
When I open my mind's eye.
I feel you wrapped around me,
In the space where I am "I".
Your kindness and your knowledge,
I need within me now,
For I'm in a constant turmoil.
Where to turn; which way and how?
Please help me to rebalance.
On my life's path forward go,
For when my mind is muddled
The answers you always know.
I know you never leave me,
In my aura sitting calm.
I thank you wisest Grandmother,
For keeping me safe from harm.
poem by Rosi Caswell
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Great Grandmother
great grandmother
grandmother's mother
she walked through my life
like red roses, that dropp over one's path
roses that hold us back to savour
the meaning cast between
two melancholic lines of a poem
great grandmother
grandmother's mother
she walked through my life
so sparingly, always with the
fervent wish to build a bridge to my life
you know it because she always walked
away with tears glistening in her eyes
tears glistening in her eyes
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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It Is A Joke
it is a joke
and it will always be
a joke
that how it is,
it is a joke, my own joke, and i laugh
when i remember it,
i send it to you and you send it back
like a ping-pong ball
it bounces and i see it coming
back to me
it hits me right in my eyes
got double vision, cross-eyed
i am hurt. It is not a joke anymore.
it is here beside
a tear, a bruise, stained and scarred.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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My Grandmother Would Drive
My grandmother could make a biscuit taste like steak.
And she did everything from 'scratch'.
Including making her own soap too.
The only thing I disliked,
That my Grandmother Clara ever did...
Was to get her driver's license.
My grandmother would drive,
And have an entire conversation...
Without looking at the road!
I had heard rumors of this...
But to witness it,
Was right out of Six Flags.
Or Disney World.
Don't ask me how she did this.
I was too busy trying to keep myself alive.
That 'imaginary' brake on the passenger side,
Of my grandmother's car...
Had worn a hole through the carpeted car floor.
And my grandmother never got a speeding ticket either.
She turned to me and asked why I had the door handle,
In my hand when speeding along the highway.
I did not realize I had pulled the handle from the door.
She frightened the 'hell' out of me.
'Grandma, I gotta use the bathroom.'
~And...? ~
'Pee.'
~You bet not be doin' that in my car, boy!
Why didn't you say somethin' when we were at the carwash? ~
'I didn't think I had to THEN, grandma.
But driving with you has proved me wrong.
I think I've got to throw up too! '
The only thing I disliked,
That my Grandmother Clara ever did...
Was to get her driver's license.
She said she didn't need to wait,
For my grandfather to take her anywhere...
She wanted to go.
And rarely did I see my grandmother,
Using the rearview mirror.
Or...
Keep her eyes on the road.
'Grandma, I gotta use the bathroom.
I'm serious.'
~And...? ~
'Pee.'
~You bet not be doin' that in my car, boy!
Why didn't you say somethin' when we were at the carwash?
You slowing me. You slowing me down. Geeesssshhh.
Precious Lord...hmmm hmmm...Lead me...hmmm.~
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Queen Mother, with a lifetime's popularity, seemed incapable of a bad performance as national grandmother-warm, smiling, human, understanding, she embodied everything the public could want of its grandmother.
quote by John Pearson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Saints
In our family, there were two saints,
my aunt and my grandmother.
But their lives were different.
My grandmother's was tranquil, even at the end.
She was like a person walking in calm water;
for some reason
the sea couldn't bring itself to hurt her.
When my aunt took the same path,
the waves broke over her, they attacked her,
which is how the Fates respond
to a true spiritual nature.
My grandmother was cautious, conservative:
that's why she escaped suffering.
My aunt's escaped nothing;
each time the sea retreats, someone she loves is taken away.
Still she won't experience
the sea as evil. To her, it is what it is:
where it touches land, it must turn to violence.
poem by Louise Gluck
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My Grandmother Used to Say
My grandmother used to say
you can't threaten
a poor man with poverty
a loveless soul with loneliness
a hard heart with pitilessness
because all these
lacks
are never noticed by those
already far gone.
You don't bring coals to Newcastle
bride an honest man
teach character-
that is something which must be lived-
Never try she would say
to be young past your age
kiss evil on the mouth
break the golden rule
Never kick a person when they are down
take victory laps
brag over small successes
Never tell your truth and ignore
the truth of others
think that you are the smartest person in the room
at all times;
My grandmother used to say.
Understand
she would say
that when you die
your only chance to live forever
is to spend you life
loving others.
My Grandmother used to say.
poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Sestina
September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.
She thinks that her equinoctial tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,
It's time for tea now; but the child
is watching the teakettle's small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac
on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.
It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.
But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons fall down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the house.
Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.
poem by Elizabeth Bishop
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Lines For An Album
Over the river and through the woods
To grandmother’s house we go ...
She waits behind the bolted door,
Her withered face in thirty pieces,
While blood runs thin, and memory,
An idiot without a name,
Recalls the snows of eighty years,
The daughter whose death was unexplained,
Darkness, blue veins, and broken leases.
Grandmother waits behind the door
(Sight dims beyond the curtain folds)
With her toothless smile and enuresis.
Over the river and through the woods
To grandmother’s house we go ...
poem by Weldon Kees
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My grandfather was Catholic; my grandmother, Jewish. Crossing over from Bavaria, as immigrants to the United States, the ship started to sink. My grandmother jumped overboard. My grandfather followed, to save this girl he had never met.
quote by Emanuel Celler
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Rita Matlock Gruenberg
Grandmother! You who sang to green valleys,
And passed to a sweet repose at ninety-six,
Here is your little Rita at last
Grown old, grown forty-nine;
Here stretched on your grave under the winter stars,
With the rustle of oak leaves over my head;
Piecing together strength for the act,
Last thoughts, memories, asking how I am here!
After wandering afar, over the world,
Life in cities, marriages, motehrhood--
(They all married, and I am homeless, alone.)
Grandmother! I have not lacked in strength,
Nor will, nor courage. No! I have honored you
With a life that used these gifts of your blood.
But I was caught in trap after trap in the years.
At last the cruelist trap of all.
Then I fought the bars, pried open the door,
Crawled through -- but it suddenly sprang shut,
And tore me to death as I used your courage
To free myself!
Grandmother! Fold me to your breast again.
Make me earth with you for the blossoms of spring--
Grandmother!
poem by Edgar Lee Masters
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Request to a Year
If the year is meditating a suitable gift,
I should like it to be the attitude
of my great- great- grandmother,
legendary devotee of the arts,
who having eight children
and little opportunity for painting pictures,
sat one day on a high rock
beside a river in Switzerland
and from a difficult distance viewed
her second son, balanced on a small ice flow,drift down the current toward a waterfall
that struck rock bottom eighty feet below,
while her second daughter, impeded,
no doubt, by the petticoats of the day,
stretched out a last-hope alpenstock
(which luckily later caught him on his way).
Nothing, it was evident, could be done;
And with the artist's isolating eye
My great-great-grandmother hastily sketched the scene.
The sketch survives to prove the story by.
Year, if you have no Mother's day present planned,
Reach back and bring me the firmness of her hand.
poem by Judith Wright
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A Pastoral
Just as the sun was setting
Back of the Western hills
Grandfather stood by the window
Eating the last of his pills.
And Grandmother, by the cupboard,
Knitting, heard him say:
'I ought to have went to the village
To fetch some more pills today.'
Then Grandmother snuffled a teardrop
And said. 'It is jest like I suz
T’ th’ parson—Grandfather’s liver
Ain’t what it used to was:
'It’s gittin’ torpid and dormant,
It don’t function like of old,
And even them pills he swallers
Don’t seem no more t’ catch hold;
'They used to grab it and shake it
And joggle it up and down
And turn dear Grandfather yaller
Except when they turned him brown;
'I remember when we was married
His liver was lively and gay,
A kickin’ an’ rippin’ an’ givin’
Dear Ezry new pains ev’ry day;
'It used to turn clear over backwards
An’ palpitate wuss’n a pump
An’ give him the janders and yallers
An’ bounce around thumpty-thump;
'But now it is torpid and dormant
And painless and quiet and cold;
Ah, me! all’s so peaceful an’ quiet
Since Grandfather’s liver ’s grown old!
Then Grandmother wiped a new teardrop
And sighed: 'It is just like I suz
T’ th’ parson: Grandfather’s liver
Ain’t what it used to was.'
poem by Ellis Parker Butler
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