Ginsberg Responds to Flannery O’Connor
By Lauren Ireland for ENGL 383
Grandma you thought you were all and now you’re nothing.
Grandma June Star wouldn’t live here for a million bucks.
I can’t stand your tiny mind.
Grandma when will you stop whining?
Go fuck yourself with your six white columns.
I don’t like your cat don’t bother me.
Grandma when will you be honest?
Please do not take off your clothes.
When will you stop thinking about yourself?
Grandma why is your old mind so full of nonsense?
Grandma when will you stop lying?
I’m sick of your insane demands.
When can I go to Florida without your irritating observations and your ugly cat?
Grandma after all it is you who are prefect and not the rest of the family.
Your violet hat is too much for me.
You made me want to be an atheist.
There must be some other way to get to Florida.
Bailey is in the woods I don’t think he’ll come back it’s sinister.
Are you really like this or is this some form of practical joke?
I’m trying to come to the point.
Grandma stop pushing the backseat is crowded.
Grandma the car is tipping it’s your fault.
You have read tabloids for years, everyday somebody goes on trial for murder.
Grandma you feel sentimental about Negroes.
Grandma you lied about the passageway you’re not sorry.
You eat olives every chance you get.
You sit in the car for hours on end and talk about watermelon.
When I go to Florida I think about you and never get laid.
My mind is made up there’s going to be trouble.
You should have seen me kicking your cat.
You won’t say the Lord’s Prayer.
You say you have mystical visions that you know Jesus.
Grandma I still haven’t told you what he did to Bailey and John Wesley.
I’m addressing you.
Are you going to go through life smug and irritating?
You are obsessed by the Misfit.
You read about him every day.
The newspaper stares at you and you read and reread.
You read in the backseat of Bailey’s car.
You’re always telling them about when you were a maiden lady. Mr. Teagarden brought you the
watermelon. He bought coca-cola stock.
It occurs to me that to thank God I am not Grandma.
I am talking to myself again.