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Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus

I think this velvet dinosaur is fine.
Please wrap it up. Does this store still take cash?
On Tuesday when my daughter’s son turns nine,
This T-Rex really ought to make a splash!

Young Jack will throw his arms around my shoulders
And then he’ll holler “Grandpa, make him roar!”
We’ll then stalk prey. We’ll hide behind some boulders
Until a pterodactyl flies ashore.

The raptor from last Christmas roars and races
Behind the T-Rex. Now to prove their brawn
The dinosaurs must duel. “Back up ten paces,
Then pounce! Whoever loses mows the lawn!”

We roar and off the pterodactyl flies!
The T-Rex and the raptor bite and slap…
Jack’s mom then chides, “Dad, neither dino dies.
It’s late and time for Jack to take his nap.”

They both go in. I touch my wedding ring
And wish Jack’s grandma could have watched our fight!
Time bleeds us so. And sunset soon will bring
Another lonely, restless, endless night.

It’s just that way when dinosaurs get old.
A meteor. Displacement. Final chapters
Where everything seems difficult and cold.
No world at all for T-Rexes and raptors.

.

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The Ascension at Fiesta Park

He seemed an ancient hob of wrinkled flesh,
But Grandpa’s eyes were young. He could recall
The day they met—that Grandma was as fresh
As Doris Day, as pretty as Bacall!
But then he frowned. His eyes began to water.
“And who are you again?” I held back tears.
“I’m Jim, your grandson—Mom’s your youngest daughter. “
I wasn’t hurt. He’d seen a lot of years.

Next morning, just before the dark was spent
I woke him for the drive from Santa Fe
Down to Fiesta Park for the ascent
Of hundreds of balloons. Their bright array
Would paint the chilly Albuquerque skies!
He’d waited his whole life to see this flight
Of variegated giants which would rise
Once streaks of pink announced the sun’s first light.

I sat with Grandpa watching this parade
Of pied balloons which well-nigh skirted heaven.
We’d come to keep the promise that he made
To Grandma. She had just turned 87
When death released her spirit to the air.
This pilgrimage was her request of him
And one which Grandpa reverenced like a prayer,
His awestruck comments whispered like a hymn.

He saw her everywhere, in every color!
That one with scarlet matched her favorite shoes;
The amber—like her eyes though slightly duller.
And there, her favorite dress—two different blues!
Another like her hair: steel gray and black;
And last was gold just like the wedding band
She wore till that sad day he took it back
To place on his own tremulous left hand.

A gentle gasp and Grandpa shut his eyes,
For she had smiled and beckoned him to sleep.
His dreams grew full now, buoyant, soft as sighs,
And free of any promises to keep.
I heard a whisper: “Yes, it’s what I choose.”
His pain was done. And as they both had planned,
He joined her up among the floating hues
In joy-filled skies above the Rio Grande.

.

.

Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals.  He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel  Bleeding Stone.  He lives in Wimauma, Florida.

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39 Responses

  1. Dick Lackman

    Loved the T-Rex poem. I can certainly relate having gone from admiring antiques to becoming one.

    Reply
  2. Mary Gardner

    What an unexpected turn in “Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus,” where I went from laughing to dabbing my eyes. “The Ascension at Fiesta Park” is very peaceful. Both poems evince your great skill.

    Reply
  3. Phil S. Rogers

    In many ways it is no fun being a T-Rex, but thankful to be beyond my expiration date. Fiesta Park, beautiful, but brings back some sad memories. Thank you Brian.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much, Phil. Memories, though sometimes sad, are truly a precious thing.

      Reply
  4. C.B. Anderson

    These are two perfect poems. The first is playful, but, as Mary notes, is not without a slightly bitter ending. I lived in Albuquerque for six months, so I know what it is like to see hot=air balloons fill the sky, and as a grandfather myself, I thought the nuanced feelings the second poem evoked were dead on target. This poet continues to amaze me.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      C.B. this is a very generous comment which I’m so grateful to receive. Thank you! And I’m very glad that you got to experience the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta — it’s the largest balloon festival in the world and the extraordinary sight of literally hundreds of hot air balloons taking to the skies over the Rio Grande is unforgettable. My only regret is that I never actually got to ride in one.

      Reply
  5. Paul A. Freeman

    The Ascension at Fiesta Park is about the easiest read poem I’ve ever come across. In fact, I read it like prose and the rhythm and rhyme sort of took care of themselves.

    As for your T-Rex poem – who isn’t a sucker for dinosaurs?

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you so much, Paul! I’m glad “Ascension” was easy to read, though I assure you the rhyme and rhythm took some elbow grease!

      And I’m glad you liked the T-Rex poem. I’ve loved dinosaurs ever since I was a kid. I suspect there are no velvet dinosaurs out there for sale. It would have been easy enough to say “plastic” but I wanted something gentler and with a small allusion to the heartwarming “Velveteen Rabbit.” Hopefully that little detail helped readers realize this poem was not just going to be about dinosaur-play.

      Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much indeed, jd! I did not know either of my grandfathers so I wrote the grandfathers in this poem as I might imagine myself in that role.

      Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      ¡Muchas gracias, Alan! ¡Me alegra mucho que te haya gustado! Me encanta escribir sobre mi antiguo hogar en Nuevo México. I’m glad to now live in Florida, but I truly miss it sometimes.

      Reply
      • Alan Orsborn

        Sic semper tyrannosaurus indeed. Even the title begins in anger? frustration? grief? and ends up morphing from the line etched in history uttered by Lincoln’s assassin to a pun involving a child’s toy. Serious things turned to enjoyable things.

        The little easy to miss detail between the two poems, the wedding ring on the one hand and the wedding band on the other, is very emotive and touching, linking the generations together, in joy and sorrow, and it makes sense the two poems are presented as a pair. These are poems about family.

        I obsessed a little about whether I should have written a comment in Spanish on an English website, and I wondered whether it might be deleted by a moderator, but I just got back from two months in Baja and it’s hard to let Mexico go. And from following your work, I knew you spoke Spanish. For the rest of you, desculpe la molestia, forgive the annoyance. Forgive all my annoyances.

      • Brian A. Yapko

        Alan, this is a very meaningful additional comment for which I thank you. First, rest assured that there are no “annoyances” to be forgiven. To the contrary, I’m very pleased to hear from you. And I am delighted to get a chance to practice my hopelessly inadequate Spanish. I’m out of practice, I’m afraid. In New Mexico it was far more commonly used than it is here in Florida, despite the fact that Florida has a huge number of people from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Columbia and other Spanish-speaking nations.

        I appreciate your brief discussion of the title of “Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus.” I’d like to elaborate a little. I am, of course aware that John Wilkes Boothe shouted out “sic sember tyrannis” as he assassinated Lincoln in 1865. That was not the association I intended with my title so much as the more ancient use attributed to Brutus when he participates in the assassination of Julius Caesar. “Thus is it always to tyrants…” Well, of course, the pun with T-rex was irresistable. But if you read the poem again you may notice the line “Time bleeds us so.” While there is sadness and resignation in the idea that “thus is it always with dinosaurs…” (i.e. getting old, meteors displacing the relied-upon landmarks of life… )There is even moreso the violence that time itself does to us as it bleeds us. So that metaphoric bleeding image (contrasted with the play dinosaur war) is what I thought of as I titled this piece.

        This may be a good place to mention my poetic decision to stand with a scientific mistake. It was, in fact, famously an asteroid that is thought to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. A meteor is a much smaller object. However, I did not like the science-fictiony intrusive sound of “asteroid” here nor did the grandfather here necessarily seem scientifically savvy enough to care which it was.

  8. Joseph S. Salemi

    Really beautiful work, Brian — both of them. But the tinge of sadness in them is painful.

    Both pieces are in the elegiac manner, or what critics used to call the “ubi sunt” tradition, which alludes to those persons or places or things that have vanished from the world. Anglo-Saxon poets frequently used this mode.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much indeed, Joe. Yes, both of them do have that tinge of sadness since they are reflections on loneliness in the autumn of life. The older I get the harder it is for me to stay away from such subject-matter.

      I had not thought of these as being “ubi sunt” poems but now that you bring it up, they certainly have that wistfulness of “where are things, people, experiences that I once knew and loved…?” In college my class was given the example of the pop song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” as a modern example.

      Reply
  9. Warren Bonham

    Both of these were fantastic but Ascension really hit home given that we’re now at the stage where we’re dealing with dementia issues with aging parents. That was a beautiful ending.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Warren, thank you so much for this heartfelt comment. I dealt with both of my parents as they approached the end-stages of their lives. I was my mother’s main caregiver during her last 12 years and it was hard dealing with her medical issues, including dementia. But I have no regrets whatsoever. It was difficult and yet the most important gift I could give. You will be so glad you were there for them and your endeavors have my prayers and deep respect.

      Reply
  10. Cynthia Erlandson

    Both of these are gut-wrenching and tear-jerking, especially “Ascension.” The depth of expression is exquisite — not at all maudlin.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you so much, Cynthia! I do sometimes feel the need to bring out tears. Compassion and grief are two of the most important things that make us human. I’m so glad that you liked them!

      Reply
  12. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Brian, your two poems are endearing, enchanting, and filled with the kind of personal memories that can only have come from the heart. As one getting along later in life, the story of playing with a son opens my thoughts to those times when I once played with my own son. As one aware of the annual beautiful balloon festival in Albuquerque, the melding of the thoughts of an observant grandfather with suspect memory of other things but who is still able to think on the important things in life to him, such as matching the colors on the balloons with some things his wife wore, was beautiful imagery of deep-felt emotions. These are two more praise-worthy poems.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Roy, thank you very much indeed for this generous and detailed comment! These are poems that do indeed come from the heart and the subject of aging and the changes and losses that come along with it are very important to me. I’m especially pleased that you liked the colorful reminders of the grandmother as observed by the grandfather in “Ascension.” That type of projection of the heart into what we see is one of the ways we keep the memory of people alive, along with favorite songs, favorite foods, etc.

      I’m very glad that you got to enjoy the Albuquerque Balloon Festival. It is like nothing I’ve ever experienced and I would highly recommend that anyone who loves hot-air balloons and/or airships make the effort to see it. It takes place for 10 days every October when northern New Mexico is cool and crisp and the aspen and cottonwood trees are turning gold. Something like 100,000 people from all over the world attend. It’s pure magic.

      Reply
  13. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Brian, I think I’ve told you before, your poems breathe… and these two are alive and brimming with skill, heart-touching emotion, and stories that speak to the soul.

    I like the clever title of “Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus”. It frames the excellent closing stanza perfectly. And the story… you always manage to capture the very essence of the human heart. The way the grandfather is able to sweep his grandson up in the wonder of childhood magic when he is weighed down with grief shines like a beacon in a dark age that has no respect for elders and their wisdom.

    “The Ascension at Fiesta Park” is glorious! The love between Grandpa and Grandma is beautiful and tangible, and the adoration and respect Jim feels for them shines. I love the way you paint pictures with your words… we can see Grandma through Grandpa’s eyes with your mention of film stars of her time… we can see her joy and flair in the colors of the balloons. These poems have managed to make me smile and cry at the same time… a measure of their wonder.

    These works remind us of who we are in a world that values AI more than the wonders of the human soul. Loving relationships with our fellow human beings conquer all ills. These poems of enduring love need a wide audience. Brian, thank you very much indeed!

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Bless you, Susan, for this heartfelt and deeply understanding description of my poems and poetic intent. If you smiled and got teary at the same time then I achieved precisely what I had hoped for — a small exploration of the ties that bind family, both in grief and love.

      I don’t often think about the threat of artifical intelligence but as you bring it up, I can see how it is antithetical to literally everything that matters and makes us human. Even the very human flaws in these poems’ characters — the Ascension grandfather’s dementia, Jack’s mother’s lack of humor in Sic Semper, for example — I believe, make them more worthy of love, warts and all. In my poetic and theological worldview, in the end, it’s the soul that matters. Isn’t that how it should be? Thank you again, Susan, for your generous words.

      Reply
  14. Joshua C. Frank

    Wow, Brian, these are great! They’re so different from what you usually write, and yet they work. I also love both titles.

    These poems capture the special relationship between grandparents and grandchildren, as well as the sadness of the passage of time. You’ve done that very well!

    All the other commenters have already said anything more I could say about them.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you so much, Josh! I never got to know my grandparents (3 of whom died before I was even born) so the blessings of having a living, loving grandparent is an unmet yearning that I have always had. If there is a wistful tone in these works, it is in part because of that yearning.

      I’m also glad if the subject-matter surprised you a bit. I try to not be too repetitive in my work and am just trying to find different ways — no matter who the speaker is — to show some insight into people’s natures. As I see it, the primary purpose of a poet is to be observant and bear witness. But that does not mean only about social and political things. It’s really about any and all human things.

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        I guess that’s why the poems spoke to me… I feel the same way as you do, for the same reason.

        I, too, have been seeking to branch out similarly. After all, our favorite poets have all written on a wide variety of subjects, unlike many modern popular musicians who seem only to be able to sing romance songs and breakup songs.

  15. Margaret Coats

    Brian, I’m glad Alan Orsborn noted the pairing of these two poems by the mention of the wedding band. You use “ring” in the first poem and “band” in the second not only for the sake of different rhyme sounds, but to add descriptive detail. A ring might have jewels, inlay, or other decoration, while “band” is more often used to specify plain gold. In both poems the ring or band is a reminder of the departed grandmother, and in the second, we find it was her ring, taken to wear by her husband when she dies. This puts the two of them back in time, to the period when (ordinarily) only women received a ring at the wedding, as a gift of some value, symbolizing not only the immeasurable value of love, but the husband’s intent to support his wife financially for life. My father (married in the 1950s) had no wedding ring, nor did either of my grandfathers. And my maternal grandmother told me she never took her ring off during 60+ years of marriage.

    With this significant detail linking them, I think your poems are best interpreted as two stages of grandfatherhood in the same man. The first shows him as an enthusiastic younger grandpa, doing his best to please Jack, who may be his first grandchild. Jim in the second poem may be the last, as he says his mother is the man’s youngest daughter. It was indeed a lot of years he spent as a widower, which emphasizes his fidelity to Grandma’s memory. Any widower can look around and easily find a new mate of similar age or younger, as men tend to die earlier than women, and the elderly population is disproportionately female. Your first poem with the younger grandpa also emphasizes fidelity, with “another lonely, restless, endless night.” It didn’t have to be that way; he chose it. And you have him whisper near the end of the second poem, “Yes, it’s what I choose.” You use words subtly to connect the poems of your emotional exploration into grandfatherhood.

    And there’s the other symbol of upward flight for departure of a soul. Often a bird, especially a dove, appears in stories of Christian death. It’s a natural representation of a last breath going forth in animated shape. It occurs in many cultures, sometimes being a vision that invites the living to follow. With the balloon fiesta, you make magnificent use of this feature in a poem dealing with two deaths, one soul seen at last, and the other sending forth his last breath in satisfied words, understood by the additional observer, his grandson.

    These splendid poems are characteristic of you, Brian. The particular choice of subject is what’s different, but you turn it to your ever sensitive concern with the heart and soul of human beings. Without looking through your repertoire here, I can think of at least a dozen with like mood and tone. These are a wonderful addition to your oeuvre. I read them two days ago, and have thought of them very frequently during the time I was unable to comment. That quality of adherence in the mind of a reader shows how good they are.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much indeed, Margaret, for this deeply considered comment and your appreciation for these two “grandfather” poems. You and Alan are both right to see the wedding ring as the link between them. I am struck by the fidelity of widows and widowers who recognize their wedding vows beyond the loss of her/his spouse and had as a good example my own dear mother who never let her ring off her finger even though my father had passed away 12 years before she did. She believed with all her heart that marriage is forever and what could be more beautiful than that? The ring or band symbolizes an awareness of loyalties and relationships that go beyond this world — a sort of symbolic window into the spiritual realm where our loved ones wait for us.

      Your reading of the two grandfathers in these poems as being the same individual is an intriguing one to me. Although that is not what I intended, neither is it precluded by the works and there is definitely a sense of two different stages of grandfatherhood, so there’s a deep logic to your interpretation. (Although, for me, desert New Mexico contrasts sharply with the casual “mow the lawn”.) Clearly there are verbal and symbolic connections – the ring/band and, as you dig more deeply, the verbal and thematic subject of “choice.” There is also the interconnection and contrast of serious subjects like love and death with childish play – the dinosaur battle, the whimsy of the balloons… I was hoping to show not contrast so much as integration.
      Along these lines, I also wanted to explore the interconnection between the very old and the very young. That is why I “generation-skipped” and had the interactions be between grandfather and grandson. Although they are obviously important, “Jack’s mother” in Tyrannosaurus is unnamed as is “mom, your youngest daughter.”

      Old and young, tragedy and whimsy, family togetherness and personal loneliness – in my poems I believe the tragic and the joyous are all around us and it behooves us to see both. By the way, on the subject of language and tone, I threw in a subtle Robert Frost allusion with the line “free of any promises to keep.” I intended by this to show the “Ascension”’s grandfather’s choice of a “good” death, one not tragic and one in which nothing was left unfulfilled or unresolved. His not-unwelcome death is meant to be contrasted with the “lonely, restless, endless” endurance of the speaker in “Tyrannosaurus.”

      Lastly, thank you so much for the deep compliment about my poems, Margaret, and especially my concern for the soul and the heart. For me, the soul is the poetic subject that matters the most.

      Reply
  16. David Whippman

    Brian, the transition in “Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus” took me by surprise. From light-heartedness to quiet tragedy. So poignant.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much, David! A surprise indeed! Somewhat, perhaps, like the unexpected fall of a meteor…?.

      Reply
  17. Adam Sedia

    I loved “Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus.” I have a four-year-old daughter who loves dinosaurs, and the scene you describe with the stuffed dinosaurs is all too familiar to me. Personal impressions aside, your poem transforms this mundane scene into a powerful message. You use your trademark dramatic monologue to remark on the passage of time from the perspective of one who has seen it pass and now sees himself – like the dinosaurs – on the verge of extinction.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Adam, thank you so much for this generous comment! It made my day! I’m so glad my poem resonated with you. I hope time is kind to you both and you get to share your daughter’s love of dinosaurs for many decades to come!

      Reply
  18. Adam Wasem

    A risky move, in “Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus,” moving so quickly from rough and tumble comedy with the kids to the lonely and elegiac, but along with the rock-solid meter and expert rhyme, the use of the vernacular makes it seem, far from jarring, inevitable. Anything flowery and it would come across as ridiculous. Your final two stanzas I find strongly reminiscent of Larkin’s “Sad Steps.”

    My only minor quibble is with the exclamation point after “grandma could have watched our fight!” The poem’s mood has already transitioned into the somber and reflective, and a period instead of an exclamation point here would fit better. That said, impressively, enviably done.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you so much for the generous and thought-provoking comment, Adam! I will consider what you say about the explanation point. I do have a tendency to overuse them, but two things I’d like to note: the “risky move” as you note was indeed the sudden shift from playful to elegiac triggered by the grandfather’s sudden aloneness when mom takes Jack indoors and he’s left alone. First, if I were a film director I would tell my actor “relive the action you were just involved in for a second to try to hold onto it before letting it slip away.” That would be my character note and that, poetically, is the legacy exclamation point that maybe shouldn’t be there, but that I still think should. He’s still smiling to himself. He’s saying, “honey, did you see that…?!” And then the sudden realization of what being alone means. That’s at least how I would stage it, but I recognize this is a poem, not a play. The second thing is, that abruptness is essential to my vision of what the poem should present: a contented life suddenly disrupted by a “meteor.” Here, the grandmother’s death. So I wanted to convey a sudden disruption. But I fully see your subjective response to the work as being a logical one and, yes, I did take a risk of having these points maybe not work for everyone. But just so you know what my thinking behind these choices was… Thanks again for letting me talk about this. One thing about my dramatic monologues is that I really do stage them in my head and act them out. Sometimes my staging doesn’t work, but c’est la vie.

      Reply

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