Warning Reimagined For the Modern Age

Author's preface: With sincere apologies to Jenny Joseph and her classic poem Warning I present to you Warning Reimagined for the Modern Age. Warning, written by Miss Joseph in 1961 was voted Britain’s favourite poem. It is known and loved the world over for its message of old age as a time for indulgence and fun. Warning reimagined was written in 2023 and has not yet recieved any votes in any contest of favorite poems in Britain or anywhere else in the world. In Warning the poem’s respectable middle-aged woman, imagines herself in old age as a cheeky rebel with outrageous clothes and dotty behaviour. In Warning Reimagined the poems disreputable middle aged lowlife imagines herself in old age as a violent, depraved, borderline psychopath. Jenny Joseph created a character whose thoughts have been quoted at conferences and funerals, used to cheer up sick friends and remembered with pleasure by children and adults alike around the world. In Warning Reimagined Daniel DeMarco has created a character whose thoughts should be censored and banned, used to depress and enrage enemies, and instantly forgotten with pleasure by almost all rational right thinking persons around the world.

Warning was included in the anthology Tools of the Trade: Poems for new doctors (Scottish Poetry Library, 2014). That anthology was edited by Dr Lesley Morrison, GP; Dr John Gillies, GP and Chair, Royal College of GPs in Scotland, Rev Ali Newell, and Lilias Fraser. The anthology was funded by individual donations and promoted by Deans of a variety of Scottish medical schools who gave copies of the book to their graduating students. Warning reimagined has not been included in any anthology of poetry or literature nor should it ever be. In fact, as already mentioned above, should it ever be published in any format, in any publication, it should be censored and/or banned for indecent content. It also lacks any artistic value or merit and there is no good reason for publishing or reading it. It is however, quite humorous, very unlike the original Warning which, while it might make your 80 year old grandmother smile, would almost certainly bore the average modern teenager to tears. Warning reimagined on the other hand would likely give your 80 year old grandmother the vapors and generate a shrug from the average modern teenager who sees and reads things ten times more offensive on a daily basis.

When I am an old woman I shall make my first porno

With a man half my age, who doesn't care, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my residuals on cocaine and lingerie

And six inch stilleto heels, and say we’ve no money for Pop Tarts.

I shall sit down at the computer when I’m tired

And rob banks at gunpoint and pull fire alarms

And run my stick along the ass of any who oppose me

And double down on the drunkeness of my youth.

I shall go out naked in the rain

And trample flowers in other people’s gardens

And learn to hack.

You can wear no clothes and grow obese

And eat three pounds of skittles at a go

Or only M&M's and Snicker's for a week

And hoard stolen tablets and Iphones and laptops and things in boxes.

But now we must wear clothes that keep us decent

And pay our mortgage and not run down people in the street

And set a good example for the snot nosed brats.

We must have co-conspirators to dinner and read the news and political blogs.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to make pornos.