Tag: poetry

Ron’s Time Tunnel: When I Was Your Age

On By ronbrownxIn Ron's Time Tunnel16 Comments

Mollie&Gramp3

 

Those of my Grandma’s generation were rather fond of reminding the youth of my generation how much better things were when they were young. They spoke of how the younger generation—the generation of degeneration—was headed headlong into the archetypal pits of “hell” in the proverbial “hand basket”.  They sometimes cursed us to a life of raising children and grandchildren that would give us just as much hell as we, allegedly, gave them. Sometimes they would just sit back and tell stories, fascinating stories about the “old days”.  I wrote this poem in memory of, and as a eulogy to, “the good old days”.

WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE

When I was your age, we didn’t have any shoes.
We walked ten miles barefooted, just to get to school.

An ordinary bucket served as our lunchbox,
With biscuits to eat and some syrup to sop.

I only had one dress to wear and I wore it every day.
Mama washed it with lye soap, until the stains went away.

We wore overalls with dozens of holes and patches;
Made of calico, denim, and even burlap swatches.

When I was your age, I didn’t learn algebra and calculus.
I learned my “times tables” and “ciphered” with an abacus.

When Mama combed my hair and I squirmed or acted bad,
She hit me on the head with the brush or whatever else she had.

As a matter of fact, when-so-ever we sassed or disobeyed,
She whipped our tails with a switch and made us all behave.

When I was your age, I was actually older than you.
When I was going on one year old, I was really going on two.

Young’uns today are served on a silver platter.
My folks just looked at my empty hands and asked, “What’s the matter?”

When I was your age, children were seen and not heard.
You got your teeth knocked out if you even whispered a word.

Children today awaken on Christmas morn, to piles of pirate’s loot.
All we got for Christmas was some walnuts, hard candy, and fruit.

We used kerosene lamps and candles at nighttime to see.
We had to carry them with us when we went to the outhouse to pee.

We got up with the chickens and did our chores without a peep.
When the sun went down, we went back to sleep.

When I was your age, we didn’t have; marijuana, coke and heroin.
We had Coca-Cola with real cocaine within.

Those were the good old days.
When I was your age!

~by Ronald Brown (2015)

 

 

 

Ron’s Time Tunnel: The Birds

On By ronbrownxIn Ron's Time Tunnel21 Comments

BLUEMONKEY2

A myriad of birds flew through my childhood. Everywhere, there were birds of both the literal and figurative ilk. Some came by way of stories told by the “old folks”, others flew in from childhood adventures. TAKE HEED.

THE BIRDS

High above the Eagle flies,

Lord and master of the skies;

Wings outstretched to catch the breeze.

Dad said, “Time flies on wings like these”.

He once spoke of an outlandishly odd bird,

Who only flew backwards, or so he’d heard.

The bird cared not about where it was going.

It only cared where it had been.

One bird gave a monkey a terrible ride.

He dove, dipped, flipped and turned on his side.

He rocketed straight up like a jet plane in flight,

but the monkey held the birds neck with all of his might.

The bird squealed, “Please loosen your hold, I can’t breathe!”

But the monkey tightened his grip and dug in with his knees.

He said, “Mr. Bird, Mr. Bird if you don’t want to die tonight,

Stop this hellish flying; straighten up and fly right!”

On Sundays or when ironing, my Grandma would sing;

“Oh Glory, I’ll fly away on some glad morning!

Some glad day when this life is over, I’ll fly away.

Just like a Mourning Dove on that Great Getting Up Day”.

And how about the parrot that just sits in his cage,

talking and talking as if he were a sage,

but fly he does not nor does he sing.

Didn’t he hear Maya explain “Why the caged bird sings”?

You see he couldn’t fly even if he was free

Because his wings have been clipped for a paltry fee.

Talking and talking like some kind of big shot.

But fly like the other birds, that he does not.

In our youth, we shot robins with BB guns.

That’s how we started our springtime fun.

Some may frown at Robin Redbreast’s death,

But it thrilled us to death, to put a bullet in his chest.

A bird is the reason my ear constantly rings.

Once Block, Dad and I were small game hunting.

“White Cloud” was with us too, but walking behind.

I believe the year was nineteen seventy-nine.

We were hunting rabbit but jumped some quail.

One flew so close, I could touch his tail.

White Cloud raised his gun and picked him off in mid-air

I’m sure to this day, that I felt buckshot part my hair

Dazed I stood as bells rang in my head.

It was then that I remembered what father had said.

I could hear his voice rising above the constant ring

And these are the words that he was saying;

“High above the Eagle flies

Lord and master of the skies

Wings outstretched to catch the breeze

Time flies on wings like these”.

By Ron Brown

Ron’s Time Tunnel: God’s Lullaby

On By ronbrownxIn Ron's Time Tunnel10 Comments

GODSLULLABY1

Down on South Street; my brother, my sister, and I, lived our early lives in a kind of “bicameral” existence; splitting our time between our house and Gramp’s house. These houses were next door to each other; separated by a distance of only about 30 to 40 feet. Some days, we’d wake up in one house and eat breakfast in the other, or get partially dressed in one and finish dressing in the other. One house had a washing machine and the other had a dryer. At times they were even physically connected; joined by an umbilical cord of rubber and wire which fed electrical life from one to the other. It was a perfectly symbiotic existence; the life lived between these two homes.

However, there was one thing that both homes possessed in equal proportions. They both possessed twin tin roofs which when rained upon, created a rhythmic spell of somnolence that rivaled the one cast upon old Rip Van Winkle himself.

In this brief interlude between the “tales of the Comet,” I introduce to you:

GOD’S LULLABY

Has God ever played you a lullaby?

Well if you grew up sleeping under a tin roof like I.

Every time it rained, God played a lullaby;

A quiet, gentle song to drown out our worries;

To smooth out all of the wrinkles and furrows

That have etched themselves into our faces and lives.

It’s a soothing refrain that quiets, in our minds, the troubled cries;

A hush-a-bye with the diacopic lyrics of the rain as it dives;

Meeting the tin; a chorus of drips that gently slide

To the ground below. Such is God’s Lullaby.

To some, the rain can be a bane,

That brings memories to lovers

Of loves lost and to others,

It heralds the harbinger of pain.

But these, perhaps have never heard the rain,

That drums hypnotic rhythms into slumbering brains.

One such star-crossed lover sang a song which decrees;

“I can’t stand the rain against my window; bringing back sweet memories.”

It seems that in the song that she’d lost her beau.

And the only sound in the world that she could not swallow

Was the sound of the rain against her window.

Even the lullabies of an oldie like “Rock-a-bye-Baby”

Fall far short of the Master’s melody.

Why, even the old sandman has no such magic that matches

The magic that the Master’s lullaby masters.

In fact, the tale of the poor baby in the “treetop”

Has planted the seeds of nightmares into many a tot.

The poor little child; all alone up in the tree’s frightening height;

In a cradle held precariously high by one limb so slight.

The tree swaying back and forth in the gale

Does horrify rather than tranquilly quell.

CRACK! The limb breaks and the poor child, cradle and all

Comes tumbling, crashing down through the limbs of the tree they both fall;

Smashing into the ground below. What self-respecting child or adult even,

Could sleep with that vision dancing horrifically in dreams?

Not I! Give me the rain on a tin roof; the old tried and proven.

Give me the rain; a lullaby from Heaven.

-Ronald W. Brown (2014)

©Ronald W. Brown, (2014-2016).  All Rights Reserved.