Herbert Nehrlich - Grandpa, The Shrink

My grandpa, an old-fashioned shrink
told all his patients how to think.
He asked them holes into their brains
and catered wisely to their pains.
A thousand words he thus instilled
into psychotic, iron-willed
and other specimens in need,
a measure of cognition's seed.

And then, at session number six
he waved his magic wand to fix
the problems they could not surmount,
he flicked his fingers, not to count
but to command the strict attention
of those who'd feed his growing pension.

And, bit by bit he would extract
each previously unknown fact.
By twisting what he had implanted
he'd pull, then happily recanted
terms of confusion from within.
And then he stood there, with a grin
pronounced them balanced in the skull.
My grandpa's life was never dull.

Herbert Nehrlich

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/grandpa-the-shrink/