This blog will be a place to post poetry written by people living with Alzheimer's disease. We will focus on poetry that is created as part of the Alzheimer's Poetry Project. We will post information and news about dementia. We hope this blog is of use to the family members who have a loved one with dementia.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Faulty Wiring

Faulty Wiring
Bob MacLaughlin

Their smiles shatter
and they utter that pitying "ohhh..."
when I tell them

Pop has Alzheimer's
as if he's afflicted with tragedy
not just faulty wiring

as if there's no way he and I
could have laughed our guts out
the other day when we heard

that giant clunking noise
and he jammed the brakes on,
bellowing,

"What the hell was that?!"
and I got out to look up and down
the street but found nothing

until I caught his cane in the act
of running away again, it having slid
down from moon roof

and hooked itself around the ham radio
antenna on the trunk, wagging
like the tail of a mischievous dog.

More info on Faulty Wiring at Moon Pie Press

Link to an interview with MacLaughlin on WABI

MacLaughlin wrote Faulty Wiring in tribute to his father Wilson Furness "Bud" MacLaughlin.

In addition to writing poetry, MacLaughlin has been a newspaper sportswriter, magazine editor, and advertising copywriter for print and broadcast. He once wrote a column decrying the outrageously high price of ringside Ali-Frazier tickets ($25). He likes writing poems because you can make up whatever you want, and you don't have to worry about deadlines (unless you agree to a book) or pleasing your client's relatives. Bob has lived fulltime in midcoast Maine since 1979 and aspires to be a native.