So Does Everybody Else, Only Not So Much

Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
This American poet cracks me up. I am not sure I fully appreciate the poem referred to in the title of this post, however, I do like the title of the poem... Nash is a little like e.e. cummings in a way. His word invention and playfulness is what I appreciate most. I love many poets, and several more than this fellow, but it's his birthday today and I hadn't dabbled in poetry in awhile. I looked for a good bio link and instead discovered this... audio interviews. I thought that was more fun.

















Come on in, the Senility is Fine

People live forever in Jacksonville and St. Petersburg and Tampa,
But you don't have to live forever to become a grampa.
The entrance requirements for grampahood are comparatively mild,
You only have to live until your child has a child.
From that point on you start looking both ways over your shoulder,
Because sometimes you feel thirty years younger and sometimes
thirty years older.
Now you begin to realize who it was that reached the height of
imbecility,
It was whoever said that grandparents have all the fun and none of
the responsibility.
This is the most enticing spiderwebs of a tarradiddle ever spun,
Because everybody would love to have a baby around who was no
responsibility and lots of fun,
But I can think of no one but a mooncalf or a gaby
Who would trust their own child to raise a baby.
So you have to personally superintend your grandchild from diapers
to pants and from bottle to spoon,
Because you know that your own child hasn't sense enough to come
in out of a typhoon.
You don't have to live forever to become a grampa, but if you do
want to live forever,
Don't try to be clever;
If you wish to reach the end of the trail with an uncut throat,
Don't go around saying Quote I don't mind being a grampa but I
hate being married to a gramma Unquote.

-------------------------

Reflection on a Wicked World

Purity
Is obscurity.

--------------------------

I found another poem of his that was new to me -- "PG Wooster, Just as he Useter" I'm not sure I totally "get" it, still I thought it was fun and that Spencer would like to read this one!

--Kate