It's No Good

    It's No Good

            Grandma shakes her head. "It's no good," she says.

          Food, friends, neighbors, children, grandchildren,

                   her aching joints;

                   all no good.

          She needs her troubles, lives to complain.

          Tired of this, I turn on the TV, but find her there too.

          The weather's no good, the market's no good,

          Politicans are no good, foreigners are no good,

                   People are no good.

          The papers say the same; books and movies expand on the theme.

          The government's no good, the air's no good,

          The streets are no good, your money's no good,

          Your friends are no good, your lovers are no good,

                   Love's no good, life's no good.

          It sharpens us, they say; keep us on our toes

          Makes us happy in the end.

          But what if it isn't so?

          What if misery only makes us miserable?

          What if a steady diet of death

          Only makes people die sooner?

          What if all the no goods are no good?

          I turn off the TV, run to my typewriter

          Eagerly pound out a poem

          Full of dire warnings about dire warnings

          But Grandma reads it and shakes her head.

          "It's no good," she says.