My grandfather watches his program
On a ninety year old television set
Every morning
And every night.
He likes watching as the screen fizzles and cracks--
the occasional large black splotch popping up
The old man admires the withering tv’s great resilience
As it struggles to rerun episodes of Seinfeld
Although he adores all of the tv’s charm, grandpa’s favorite thing
about watching television on the half broken machine
is that it displays everything in
black and white.
When colored television had premiered, as a young boy
He despised that people were so quick
To leave the colorless screen--
submitting to the progressing perspective
Many were hastily including vibrancy in their daily dose of media
But my old man adored his big, black box
because of its old fashioned ways.
He admired the absence of color that it provided--
removing all complications
In black and white
He was able to decipher
Between right and wrong--
Separating the two in very strong, stern lines
On the screen
He watched a man and woman
With their black and white love growing
He observed the colorless bond, admiring
the beauty of a rare sacrament
However, Grandpa did not see with clarity
When viewing in color
Watching in a masquerade of hues lacked
the segregation he found comfort in.
The vivid colors disassembled the borders,
The linear perfection faded away--
fuelling chaos.
He watched confusion circulate
As more and more
Began streaming in color.
As woman lay among woman
Man among man
All grandpa surveyed was chaos
He believed it to be in color.
He is not wrong.
Humanity does not belong in the ninety year old black box--
Screening a view that bleaches
All of the colors that we have earned
While his colors of black and white
Remain in our televisions
Our obnoxious colors
Do not exist in his.
So he continues to watch his programs
On an old, outdated machine—
Pretending that a black and white world
Can exist outside of a television screen
And we watch, indulging ourselves
In the colored sights of reality.
About the Creator
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The Apostles' Creed
Not sure if I should ask this or not, but here goes. When you were a child and going to Sunday school and the last few years of that schooling you learned in some detail the workings of the church and studying to be confirmed member of your church after being baptized as an infant. There were several pieces of biblical literature that seems that we had to memorize from the Lord's Prayer to the Ten Commandments to the Apostle's Creed to give us meaning to our lives. We were learning to confirm our baptism and our belief in Him. To me this is a lot for a middle school student to absorb in my opinion, but for some reason this creed seems to stick somehow.
By Mark Graham3 days ago in Poets
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