Friday 26 June 2015

Born Middle Aged

While most children spend most of their childhoods (the waking part)
   variously complaining that something isn’t fair, fighting with siblings,   
   shouting at parents, and generally being one way or another permanently
   enraged,
By contrast, I had a brother who was born middle-aged.
Now, no doubt some of you might start thinking, ‘Oh, I had a cousin like 
   that; we used to call him Captain Sensible,’
But I would have to stop you right there, for the level of juvenile midlife
   behaviour displayed by my brother was incomparable (as well as being   
   utterly incomprehensible).

For example, once, when I tried to goad him into a full-on dramatic and
   infantile retaliation,
He simply reminded me of his solicitor’s most recent legal communication.
‘The key phrase,’ he said, barely looking up from his Times crossword, 
   ‘starts with the word  restraining...
Now, enough of your foolish and puerile feigning,
Run along while I solve seven down:
Synonymous with younger brother, five letters – clown.’

For his sixth birthday, I rashly bought him a cute, cuddly teddy.
He just looked at me wearily, sighed, took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes, 
   and said, ‘What? That time of year already?’
The thing is, because he liked things to be ‘really straight’,
His transitional object to date
Had been a set square,
And I had naively thought that a teddy bear
Might be more suitable.
He unwrapped it and then sat there, his expression inscrutable.
‘I’m sure it’ll be very useful and it is just what I have always wanted,’
 He eventually said, before placing it in the wastepaper basket.

My brother’s middle-aged childhood seemed to be an endless
   merry-go-round of:
Advising father about his pension,
Taking inhibitors for his hypertension,
Talking to ‘young people’ with complete condescension,
Spending Saturday afternoons cleaning the car,
Being snooty about music with ‘the electric guitar’,
Writing letters to the local journal,
In the hectoring tones of a retired colonel,
Using words like ‘preposterous’ and ‘infernal’,
Insisting his milk be at least semi-skimmed,
Keeping the edges of the lawn neatly trimmed,
And his favourite treat:
Pruning the wisteria while listening to The Archers’ Omnibus Edition.

You’re probably expecting me to say, ‘And then came the Midlife Crisis,
   which turned out to be adolescence, after which he started hanging out 
   with other teens;
He even started experimenting: with the idea of wearing jeans.’
But my brother wasn’t cut out to be that unconventional,
He stayed middle-aged and continued to view us childish children as
   dim and one dimensional.

I think it must have been a really tough gig, being naturally self-disciplined,
   when all the other children were naturally self-naughty;
Adults always saying that you’re seven, going on forty;
And years later, when everyone’s forgotten,
Along comes a younger brother with some wholly misbegotten
Poem... reminding everyone.
I fully expect the last laugh to belong to my sensible sibling:
While we enjoy our ‘second childhood’, all senile and dribbling,
He’ll be gleefully running around, experiencing the new found freedoms...
   of his first childhood.

2 comments:

  1. I read this out loud and felt bad by the end for felt that I was doing an impression
    but aside from this digression
    I wanted to thank you in the form of a poem, written in your style: an ode
    after you came to our educational abode
    Bishop Wordsworth, as you'll recall, on Friday, was graced with your presence
    and I love you work, your performance, your essence.

    Although some sat and just enjoyed it
    Be aware, some have taken important life lessons and gone and employed it
    That although, as you say many sit and gawp at the television
    there are a few fighting cultural derision
    You made 90% of the boys realise that they are barely using any of their potential linguistic
    and that is a frightening statistic
    albeit made up and unrealistic

    Still, you are knight on a proverbial poetic Pegasus steed
    fighting to undo the deed
    and sow the seed
    for the mind to be freed
    open to a cultural creed
    and this all probably sounds hyperbolic;
    that I sound like a rambling alcoholic
    and that's true to an extent but if we come to the realm of reality
    I'll tell you it all in actuality.

    That this is just to say thanks and praise you
    and a plea that the idolisation doesn't faze you;
    to let you know that it was not just an extended melting session with background rhyme
    and more than just a pass of time,
    but a highlight for the festival of culture

    From Andrew White

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    Replies
    1. Hi Andrew,

      Congratulations on a really first-class humorous poem - and many thanks for the praise.

      You're a true sesquipedalianist.

      *Someone give this young man a poetry prize*

      Cheers,

      Fergus

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