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The Dead

Their reward is
they become innocent again,

and when they reappear in memory
death has completely erased
the blurs, given them boundaries. They rise

and move through their new world with clean,
clear edges. My grandmother, in particular
has become buoyant, unattached finally

from her histories, from the trappings
of family. By no means was she

a good woman. But the dead don't care anymore for that.
Weightless, they no longer assume
responsibility, they no longer

have bodies. Once,

at the end of August, after swimming
in the muddy pond

I'd gone into the living room, cool
as vodka, where my grandmother
sat. Greed thins a woman,

I remember her rings, bigger
than her fingers.
Water ran down my legs

onto the floor becoming slippery
and my grandmother, her breath
scratchy from cigarettes and blended whiskey,

leaned into my ear and whispered
you're an ugly girl. Do I have

to forgive her? My mother tells me

no one ever loved her,
so when I see her, I see her again in the park
in her pink tailored suit, suede pumps,

I see her moving among the strange
gentlemen that have gathered, the dark
powerful men. She is still young, blonde

and most of all, she is beyond reach, beautiful.

poem by Kate Northrop
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Related quotes

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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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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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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A Tub of Potatoes

My grandmother used to say
don't marry for money
but stay open-minded.

She could squeeze a nickel
and make the buffalo feel light-headed;
she could make a dollar out of 15 cent.

Now she was a big woman;
ruled the family roost
with a simple look
and an iron skillet.

Many times I heard that skillet
go thunk!
Another suitor educated.
Another boyfriend righted.

She always took us kids aside
and whispered things like
'now see that'
I don't want you kids to grow up
and do things like that.'

There was the woman or man who did not
take care of the family;
the Boyfriend Rogue;
or the Gallivant,
who tipped behind his ladies back;
the dandy who dressed so well
but did not have two dimes to rub together
and slept in the park in a tent.

These were depression days
when traveling men
rode the rails
not sure of where they came from
not sure of where they went
and the women who
longed for them;
who waited
for them
listening
for train whistles
and stock yard
freights
hauling
into Chicago
from the mid-west.

Grandmother
would sit
above a tub of water
peeling potatoes
like the layers of her life
each skin
would fall into the tub
of water
and go plop;
another chapter in Grandmother's life
told to us kids
sitting
wide-eyed.
'Time was' she would say
that this was a woman and man's country
now everything gone to hell.'
They danced in the gin joints
til then the money ran out
and the party was over
and the big depression gave them all
a big headache.
Party she said but dig down deep because
there will be a piper to pay.
Plop. Plop
Time was.
Time is.

poem by Lonnie Hicks
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My Grandmother

When she would talk about her mother,
it was as though there were another person in the room

She could see her mother in her mind;
It was as if my grandmother was dancing across the kitchen floor

It was as if she were talking about an imaginary person
who was not in the room

Her mother was in her mind

My mother was standing on the kitchen floor, cleaning a glass, and thinking of my grandmother

I could see it through the silence

poem by Samuel Stuart Pennell
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Widows

My mother's playing cards with my aunt,
Spite and Malice, the family pastime, the game
my grandmother taught all her daughters.

Midsummer: too hot to go out.
Today, my aunt's ahead; she's getting the good cards.
My mother's dragging, having trouble with her concentration.
She can't get used to her own bed this summer.
She had no trouble last summer,
getting used to the floor. She learned to sleep there
to be near my father.
He was dying; he got a special bed.

My aunt doesn't give an inch, doesn't make
allowance for my mother's weariness.
It's how they were raised: you show respect by fighting.
To let up insults the opponent.

Each player has one pile to the left, five cards in the hand.
It's good to stay inside on days like this,
to stay where it's cool.
And this is better than other games, better than solitaire.

My grandmother thought ahead; she prepared her daughters.
They have cards; they have each other.
They don't need any more companionship.

All afternoon the game goes on but the sun doesn't move.
It just keeps beating down, turning the grass yellow.
That's how it must seem to my mother.
And then, suddenly, something is over.

My aunt's been at it longer; maybe that's why she's playing better.
Her cards evaporate: that's what you want, that's the object: in the end,
the one who has nothing wins.

poem by Louise Gluck
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Woman Enough

Because my grandmother's hours
were apple cakes baking,
& dust motes gathering,
& linens yellowing
& seams and hems
inevitably unraveling
I almost never keep house
though really I like houses
& wish I had a clean one.

Because my mother's minutes
were sucked into the roar
of the vacuum cleaner,
because she waltzed with the washer-dryer
& tore her hair waiting for repairmen
I send out my laundry,
& live in a dusty house,
though really I like clean houses
as well as anyone.

I am woman enough
to love the kneading of bread
as much as the feel
of typewriter keys
under my fingers
springy, springy.
& the smell of clean laundry
& simmering soup
are almost as dear to me
as the smell of paper and ink.

I wish there were not a choice;
I wish I could be two women.
I wish the days could be longer.
But they are short.
So I write while
the dust piles up.

I sit at my typewriter
remembering my grandmother
& all my mothers,
& the minutes they lost
loving houses better than themselves
& the man I love cleans up the kitchen
grumbling only a little
because he knows
that after all these centuries
it is easier for him
than for me.

poem by Erica Jong
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My 'So Called' Family

They were cool
They were real
Now they take us for a fool
Hey, I'm jus telling u how i feel

Around my family I have to act fake
I'm not talkin bout my mother or my so called brother
for cry sake
To my family I'm jus anotha

They'll smile to ur face
and talk behind ur back
but they'll neva kno their place
and why I try to keep this family in tack

We're tired of this
drama, on my mother'z side
To me, it felt we all got dissed
Since my grandmother died

My grandmother was the glue that holds everythng 2gatha
but when she passed it all fell apart
and that's when I said bye to my family 4eva
If only they could find the love in their heart

Then they would understand how I feel
Then there will be no more pain
and only love to steal
and they could be flushed down the drain

poem by Cece Chisolm
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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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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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You See...There Was Just Too Many Of Us!

I smell my grandmother's molasses cookies.
Deep dish apple and peach pies.
And grape preserves she would make.
And my own mother's beautiful hair,
Before she grayed.
And 'overnight'...
Seemed to have aged.

As I sit and reminisce.
About so many things I miss!

I see my grandfather,
Working in the backyard.
In the shed.
Where he 'diagnosed' the engine...
Of an old truck.
With every part of it laid in pieces.
Each of them,
Carefully spread to keep them near.

'Don't...
Move,
A thing!
Or pick it up...
Because you're curious!
I got my eye on ya! '

I hear my father say...
'It is time to get your haircut, boy.
And when you sit in that barber's chair...
You bet not make a fuss!
And don't say nothing to annoy! '

I remember my aunts and uncles...
Rushing to pick apples, grapes and pears.
From an old pig farm,
Where Chappelle Gardens now sits.
In a neighborhood in Hartford, Connecticut.

I remember this as if yesterday!
And the whippings we all shared.
Regardless...
Of who or who was not actually there!
No one was spared.

'I don't care who did what!
All of you are getting it! '
My grandmother would say!

I remember rolling my eyes...
With wishes I could run away!

~Grandma, I didn't do anything.
It was her! ~

*No it wasn't it was him! *

**No it wasn't it was them! **

You see...
There was just too many of us!
And my grandmother didn't really care.
She just wanted all of us to know...
The punishment she dealt,
Would be quick.
Honest.
And fair!

Note:
Dedicated to my wonderful family.
When we (many of us) all lived in either Stowe Village,
And/or Bellevue Square.
Tenement projects.
In separate buildings AND apartments.
Back in 'the day'.

Love you!

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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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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Beauty in crescendo

Romantic, when being a girl,
Vivacious, when being a spinster,
Alluring, when having married,
Serene, when carrying,
Self confident, when in lactation,
Arresting, as a young mother,
Assuring, as a mother of teens,
Soulful, as a young grandmother
A woman will pose to men folks.
06.01.2003

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Sex has no age

A man can fall for a woman,
Young enough to be
His daughter or grand daughter.
A woman can fall for a man,
Young enough to be
Her son or grandson.
A girl can respond to a man,
Older enough to be
Her father or grandfather.
A boy can respond to a woman,
Older enough to be
His mother or grandmother.
Spectrum of sex is so catholic.
09.08.2008

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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The Clouds Of Narcissus

the clouds of narcissus pass by today
along a clear pond by the side of a rice paddy

they stop to get a good glimpse of their faces and bodies
cottony white, shades of blue, pluffy, and soft

they stop and take a longer gaze, admiring every
beauty of its hands and fingers, a longer time

an island of grass some reeds and dry leaves
get curious about what is happening why the clouds

stop and made a longer stare over the clear reflection
of their bodies on the little pond. They talk. They are curious.

and then the clouds finally get done with what is usual.
they left. Slowly sail away from what they are seeing lovingly.

Nothing happens since then. They own no one.No one owns them.
They leave. They do not know how to love. Neither are they loved.

They are gone. The island of grass is silent. The reeds hush.
And the pond has become murky.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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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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From the Diary of a Mimes

At my grandmothers house, you will see a hundred years of family portraits. We are a family of mimes. The portraits are of mimes.
You may ask why would someone wish to be a mime? For it is a limited existence beings that a mime s a simile of a single frame photograph. Look at the pictures at grandmothers house, do you feel the pain? This is my pain.
Becoming a mime.
I was six or seven years old. Grandmother and I were sitting in her living room, I had slept over at her house for a weekend while mom, dad and little brother tend to other things. Grandmother was in an odd mood today. She looked at her pictures and smiled some. And cried a little." I think its time you wore your mime face." She said. Today you will learn how to become a mime." So I said" Yes madman she proceeded to make up my face.
As she put on my makeup she started to cry. She cried for a long time. I was a little girl I started crying as well. I could not watch my grandmother cry without shedding tears of my own. So we sat and cried.
'Why are we crying' I asked? 'Well dear, sometimes life deals you a hard enough blow that even a mime will cry." I said 'Ok.'I was soon to find out what she meant. This is the day I learned a safe place for a heart to be. I learned that a person could freeze emotions and save them for future use. Yes place them in a jar, to be opened at an appropriate time. For that is what I do. You see I write a sad story, open a jar of tears and cry for a minute.
So after a good cry, grandmother took my hand and led me to the foyer wondered why I had to wear my mime face. Well grandmother had hers on, so I thought it must be a family thing, and I did not question. We sat under the foyer, was hot.New Orleans is a hot place at certain times of the year. There was no breeze, was still as could be. Nothing moved, except perhaps the webs a few lucky spiders, the ones who had prey to close in on.
'God bless mother nature, child. Its infinite wisdom, allows all creatures sustenance 'Uhh grandmother, that is a spider. Kill it, mom does.''No." She says, this is his house. If he were in mine, then I would kill him, but he lives here and kills insects.'
'You say he" I asked." How do you know it is a male spider? " She sighs." I do not know.' So I ask." Then why do you say it is a male? " It is taken for granted that any unknown sex is referred to as he. God is male." I answer" God could be a woman. I do not think anyone knows Gods sex grandmother. The world would be better if God was a female.''Perhaps so child." She answers, " Perhaps so.'
'Your father used to say that when he was your age. Always a philosophy with him." And her eye tiered up again. But I saw her turn to ice of a sudden. The tears dried. Then a long white car pulled up in the driveway, grandmother took my hand and we walked to the car. A man in a grey uniform opened the door and we sat inside. 'I will remember every detail of this day. For this is where my life changed.'
The car drove us to a big fancy building, it was full of mimes dressed in black. Even as a child I realized that something was wrong, so many mimes, all crying and made up in misery faces. I wondered why. They all parted as grandmother and I entered the building.
It was an odd place. Sad sounding music reminded me of harmonies of sorrow, organs and moans and tears. There were 3 pretty boxes in the center of the room. People were all around, most of them mimes, most were crying. 'Grand mother, what is in the boxes? 'I asked." Why do all the mimes look into them and cry? ''Never mind my child. Just be a mime.'
'Well if my daddy was here he would pick me up and I could see what was in the boxes." My grandmother looked down at me and started to cry, and the tears flowed." Brace yourself girl." She said. Then she picked me up. Eagerly I looked over the side of the box. In it was the reason I became a mime. I saw my fathers body made up to be a mime laying with his hands together as if he were praying. My brother and mother the same in other boxes. I knew they had passed away.
It was hard on a little girl, to have it etched into her mind.I kicked and screamed till grandmother set me on my feet. I ran out of the room and never spoke another word until this day.

I do not like this one much.

poem by Mike poet
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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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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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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! '