confused, not clueless

Some people answer questions with questions. This is a poem in answer to a poem penned by dementia care advocate, author, blogger, and South Australia’s Australian of the year 2017 Kate Swaffer. Her poem “OK, where are my glasses?” inspired me and the words for this one tumbled out willy-nilly. I hope you enjoy it.

confused, not clueless

© 2017 punkie

where have you gone
oh things I once knew
glasses, and jackets –
are you in the stew?

the phone looks just like
the TV remote
and my memory seems
to have gone up in smoke

who took my keys? and
the cat is now missing
“please let me find them,”
my mind keeps on wishing

i look in the bed
in the drawers, and the freezer
why do i suddenly
feel like an old geezer?

“stop repeating yourself,”
chide my son and his daughter
but the questions keep coming
like waves on the water

i still love to talk,
to walk, and to sing,
why do folks guess
i can’t do a thing?

a thing I can do
perhaps even two
so delete your believing
i don’t have a clue

i’m as smart as a whip
i always have been
if you show some respect
i won’t be so mean

don’t feed me chill pills
mashed up in my sup
treatment like that
makes me want to throw up

i crave more, i need better
stop thinking i’m dead
just because a few brain cells
have shrunk in my head!

 

© 2017 Susan Macaulay. I invite you to share my posts widely, but please do not reprint or reblog or copy and paste my poems and posts into other blogs or social media without my permission. Thank you.

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2017/06/20/the-demented-system/

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