Poem: "Jumbo Shrimp and Other Oxymorons"
This poem came out of the February 5, 2013 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from thesilentpoet and aldersprig. It has been sponsored by aldersprig and the_vulture. While this can be read as ordinary poetry, it can also be read as science fiction, in that it matches the dawn of the Conservancy in my main science fiction universe.
Jumbo Shrimp and Other Oxymorons
You'd think
it would be a redundancy
instead of an oxymoron --
mature adults --
but no.
Search that phrase online
and you'll find mostly pr0n.
You'd think,
by that age,
they would have learned
how to behave responsibly,
but no.
When I moved out,
my dad turned my bedroom
into a massage parlour.
Here's another one --
senior citizens --
surely by now it should mean
voting in every election
and not getting arrested at protests,
but no.
Just last month,
a grandmother handcuffed to her wheelchair
somehow prized loose a wire,
picked the locks,
and managed to escape.
In her wheelchair.
What is the world coming to
when it's not the children
but the parents who need supervision,
when it's not the teen years
but the golden years
full of humorous and horrifying hijinks?
And then they wonder
why we grow up to become conservatives.