The Blade

A Poem by Tate Morgan

I know someday he'll cut himself as boys always seem to do Mixing his blood, with tears and mud to each owner it ever knew

Drake and I. Father son night at school.

My grandfather was a marine

who made us think he could spit nails

Forged in the war, baked to the core

a man honed from his life’s travails

From him came my own father

whom then worked sun up to sunset

Driving horses, on race courses

of a life I'll never forget

My grandfather had owned a knife

where it came from I'll never know

Held by this man, whose own life span

had never bent nor been laid low

He passed that knife to my father

who in turn then gave it to me

And through our blood, the dirt and mud

it had bound itself to all three

I met Drake when he was seven

a troubled, angry, lonesome, child

This wondrous brain, who hid his pain

in a heart that was brash and wild

He'd touched my soul in such a way

I couldn't help but feel his pain

So unafraid, I gave that blade

forging a link to my own chain

I know someday he'll cut himself

as boys always seem to do

Mixing his blood, in tears and mud

to each owner it ever knew

I wish I could have been Drake's dad

so sad that I wasn't the one

I hoped he'd see, this gift from me

was meant from a father to son

© 2021 Tate Morgan

Author's Note

Drake and I have had a bond that was as strong as any father and child. I passed my knife onto Drake because he would appreciate it. I had hoped whenever he held it he would think of the bond between us.

My Review

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Featured Review

Veronica Chandler

This moving piece reminds me of just how profound an impact we have on the lives of one another; truly there is no measure sufficient to judge how a small and simple gesture can and does change the very fabric of people. Something which may seem a kind and moving gesture, may in the end, turn out to change the very course of a persons life. That simple act can grow exponentially and reach far beyond our wildest imaginings. Even our highest hopes for someone could easily be surpassed by the actual good, in the end created by a simple, thoughtful act of kindness. Those that came before us blazed the trail and made the way clearer for all those to come afterwards. I doubt your grandfather could have imagined how his legacy touched the life of someone he would never know.

""Every boy that has a father missing from his life, has a hole inside his soul the size and shape of his father. The mother can raise a good citizen, an educated man with good ethics and values, but he will always have that hole inside his soul; the size and shape of his father."
~Oprah~

Posted 11 Years Ago

1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

11 Years Ago

Thank you Veronica.It didn't go unnoticed by me that Oprah agrees with Mark Ric and I. Happiness is .. read more

Reviews

Mehak Mushtaq

God, this is really amazing. I like it a lot.

Posted 11 Years Ago

11 Years Ago

thank you

James Hanna-Magill

Dear Tate Morgan

I return to you again.

And what can I possibly say?

First about me your reviewer here quite apart from your being a firm friend.

I type fast.

When I write my own stuff, I use pen and ink and I can do 30 pages in one day, where they recommend 3 to 5.

I think as I write or type at times.

At others, in my reviews, I read closely, reflect and then comment.

Sometimes I do both.

Sometimes I don't really know what I do.

But I always accompany anything I say in review, with the emotions elicited in me by not just the piece but the person who wrote it.

Now you Tate before reviewing this piece.

Just bits.

I have found you to be a man who reflects often on his childhood. It is clearly something which holds you in its thrall. I often wonder why. I have yet to answer that question.

It is always clear to me, your pieces are from the heart. They talk so often of people and not just concepts. People you hold dear. I often wonder why. I have yet to answer that question.

Last, but I merely scratch at the surface of a very complex and unique soul, you mix your writing effectively with music and more than that, your own drawings.

The mix of arts I honour. I have at times sought to do it. But you do it much more effectively than I could ever do.

And so to 'The Blade'.

Structured review or not? Don't know.

Let me do a tiny bit.

Structure and rhymes: 8 four line rhyming stanzas. The rhyme only ever in the 2nd and 4th lines. Highly deliberately structured.

Use of English: Simple. Not complex. Fits a storyline with a message that is not designed to obscure, rather to wear its heart on its sleeve.

No reader's interpretation needed here.

The message is straight in your face.

You and I do both. Hide and seek or show and tell.

And to keep this a simple review, however long it may end up being, let's hit the core of what I always see in your writing, the content and sentiment of the piece but even more the content and sentiment of the man who wrote it.

Content and sentiment: Again you talk of your past. But this time it is less the flavour of the Wild West. The pieces I have already read of yours do focus on people who have mattered to you in your life or matter.

But, by contrast, this is now your sole focus here.

Gone the dust of the plains and the horses, their smell and the mucking out.

Here straight down to people and the symbolism of a blade.

Blades? Heirlooms old and new.

People? Your grandfather, your father, you, your son and your friend Drake.

You mix the relationships and their meaning with artefact.

To read this piece well, and it is often true of my writing, you need to join the writing with the author's note.

Then the picture becomes much clearer.

Three points:

1) It is so apparent not just in your writing but also in the way you communicate with me there is a deeply affective persona in the man.

But often the way you present yourself in your writing is a man who seeks to give love, care and attention. But does he seek it or get it back?

Just look at how you write here. It is all giving. Where is the receiving? Sorry to play the psychologist. But we all are in our own way.

2) If you read this piece very carefully, you will see the original knife goes from grandfather to father to you and then to Drake, but interestingly not Tate junior.

I wonder why?

Instead your son offers you a new knife. Yes here I see you receiving love from your son in return.

But why did you bypass your family heirloom and give it to Drake instead?.

No sore point intended here. More than a son? Or precisely because he was more in need than your son.

Drake needed it more because he was a lost child, whilst Tate junior already had your love and it was enough?

3) Above all I start to worry in this piece. I worry about Drake. You make your reader worry. You want us to. You make me worry he is a lost child.

You wish he were your son, like your own son.

And like I have often done, given the difficulties I self-admittedly have with my own father, I consistently seem to seek father figures by way of more realistic substitutes. Fathers shaped in my own image. Drake seeks you too in that way here.

But the most concerning? You query that your lost child will use the gift you have offered him to self-harm.

As a survivor of mental hospitals where I have seen many lost souls, I have seen many self-harmers.

They often use knives or razor blades to cut themselves.

The worst I have seen are those who will take a knife, hold it over a gas flame until it is red hot, then lay it flat up and down the inside of both arms to scorch and burn themselves and then to complete the job use the blade to cut their arms after.

Many think this is just attention seeking.

But is isn't.

I have talked to these people.

What it is, is pain displacement.

It is like biting your lip to feel less a pain in your stomach.

But psychologically, in these cases it is accepting physical pain to dull the edge of relentless psychological anguish.

Worse? I met a beautiful young woman in an acute mental health ward, when I was resident, who was there because she had poured a can of petrol over herself and struck a match. Why Tate?

Worse? I met a very intelligent young man (ex-army, post tours in Iraq with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Every week he left the hospital to buy over the counter sleeping pills with a view to killing himself.

Every time he did it he came back stomach pumped and he explained to me his deliberate calculations, continuously refined as to how many he needed to do the job properly.

Last time he did it, his heart stopped beating and he had to be shocked. He told me after it was so awful the sensation of no heart beat and the shock pads he swore he would never do it again.

And do you know what Tate? On leaving, I knew he would try it again and next time he might succeed. Why Tate?

What did these children have in common? They too were lost souls in need of love, care and affection. I tried to offer them what I could. But they needed a constant. I had to leave and live my life and I had to leave them to lead their own, all three to the best of our ability.

My hope Tate and yours is that your love for Drake, past or if he is still around you and in touch will displace his inner pain so that he may not need to use your knife instead.

Now have I really told you anything about your poem at all?

Have I really helped you in perfecting it with considered and constructive adverse crique or praising it?

Not sure.

Probably not.

But at times all I have to offer a writer is my personal reaction.

I endlessly repeat in my reviews, that we as writers are only ever addressing one reader at a time. It is an intimate conversation between two people.

The reaction will always be different dependent on the life experience of each.

Well Tate Morgan my friend, we have just had an intimate conversation as you will do with all your different readers and I have just given you mine.

Today?

This is all I have to offer you.

I can only hope it is good enough

In all friendship as ever

James

Posted 11 Years Ago

Dear Tate Morgan

I return to you again.

And what can I possibly say?

First about me your reviewer here quite apart from your being a firm friend.

I type fast.

When I write my own stuff, I use pen and ink and I can do 30 pages in one day, where they recommend 3 to 5.

I think as I write or type at times.

At others, in my reviews, I read closely, reflect and then comment.

Sometimes I do both.

Sometimes I don't really know what I do.

But I always accompany anything I say in review, with the emotions elicited in me by not just the piece but the person who wrote it.

Now you Tate before reviewing this piece.

Just bits.

I have found you to be a man who reflects often on his childhood. It is clearly something which holds you in its thrall. I often wonder why. I have yet to answer that question.

It is always clear to me, your pieces are from the heart. They talk so often of people and not just concepts. People you hold dear. I often wonder why. I have yet to answer that question.

Last, but I merely scratch at the surface of a very complex and unique soul, you mix your writing effectively with music and more than that, your own drawings.

The mix of arts I honour. I have at times sought to do it. But you do it much more effectively than I could ever do.

And so to 'The Blade'.

Structured review or not? Don't know.

Let me do a tiny bit.

Structure and rhymes: 8 four line rhyming stanzas. The rhyme only ever in the 2nd and 4th lines. Highly deliberately structured.

Use of English: Simple. Not complex. Fits a storyline with a message that is not designed to obscure, rather to wear its heart on its sleeve.

No reader's interpretation needed here.

The message is straight in your face.

You and I do both. Hide and seek or show and tell.

And to keep this a simple review, however long it may end up being, let's hit the core of what I always see in your writing, the content and sentiment of the piece but even more the content and sentiment of the man who wrote it.

Content and sentiment: Again you talk of your past. But this time it is less the flavour of the Wild West. The pieces I have already read of yours do focus on people who have mattered to you in your life or matter.

But, by contrast, this is now your sole focus here.

Gone the dust of the plains and the horses, their smell and the mucking out.

Here straight down to people and the symbolism of a blade.

Blades? Heirlooms old and new.

People? Your grandfather, your father, you, your son and your friend Drake.

You mix the relationships and their meaning with artefact.

To read this piece well, and it is often true of my writing, you need to join the writing with the author's note.

Then the picture becomes much clearer.

Three points:

1) It is so apparent not just in your writing but also in the way you communicate with me there is a deeply affective persona in the man.

But often the way you present yourself in your writing is a man who seeks to give love, care and attention. But does he seek it or get it back?

Just look at how you write here. It is all giving. Where is the receiving? Sorry to play the psychologist. But we all are in our own way.

2) If you read this piece very carefully, you will see the original knife goes from grandfather to father to you and then to Drake, but interestingly not Tate junior.

I wonder why?

Instead your son offers you a new knife. Yes here I see you receiving love from your son in return.

But why did you bypass your family heirloom and give it to Drake instead?.

No sore point intended here. More than a son? Or precisely because he was more in need than your son.

Drake needed it more because he was a lost child, whilst Tate junior already had your love and it was enough?

3) Above all I start to worry in this piece. I worry about Drake. You make your reader worry. You want us to. You make me worry he is a lost child.

You wish he were your son, like your own son.

And like I have often done, given the difficulties I self-admittedly have with my own father, I consistently seem to seek father figures by way of more realistic substitutes. Fathers shaped in my own image. Drake seeks you too in that way here.

But the most concerning? You query that your lost child will use the gift you have offered him to self-harm.

As a survivor of mental hospitals where I have seen many lost souls, I have seen many self-harmers.

They often use knives or razor blades to cut themselves.

The worst I have seen are those who will take a knife, hold it over a gas flame until it is red hot, then lay it flat up and down the inside of both arms to scorch and burn themselves and then to complete the job use the blade to cut their arms after.

Many think this is just attention seeking.

But is isn't.

I have talked to these people.

What it is, is pain displacement.

It is like biting your lip to feel less a pain in your stomach.

But psychologically, in these cases it is accepting physical pain to dull the edge of relentless psychological anguish.

Worse? I met a beautiful young woman in an acute mental health ward, when I was resident, who was there because she had poured a can of petrol over herself and struck a match. Why Tate?

Worse? I met a very intelligent young man (ex-army, post tours in Iraq with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Every week he left the hospital to buy over the counter sleeping pills with a view to killing himself.

Every time he did it he came back stomach pumped and he explained to me his deliberate calculations, continuously refined as to how many he needed to do the job properly.

Last time he did it, his heart stopped beating and he had to be shocked. He told me after it was so awful the sensation of no heart beat and the shock pads he swore he would never do it again.

And do you know what Tate? On leaving, I knew he would try it again and next time he might succeed. Why Tate?

What did these children have in common? They too were lost souls in need of love, care and affection. I tried to offer them what I could. But they needed a constant. I had to leave and live my life and I had to leave them to lead their own, all three to the best of our ability.

My hope Tate and yours is that your love for Drake, past or if he is still around you and in touch will displace his inner pain so that he may not need to use your knife instead.

Now have I really told you anything about your poem at all?

Have I really helped you in perfecting it with considered and constructive adverse crique or praising it?

Not sure.

Probably not.

But at times all I have to offer a writer is my personal reaction.

I endlessly repeat in my reviews, that we as writers are only ever addressing one reader at a time. It is an intimate conversation between two people.

The reaction will always be different dependent on the life experience of each.

Well Tate Morgan my friend, we have just had an intimate conversation as you will do with all your different readers and I have just given you mine.

Today?

This is all I have to offer you.

I can only hope it is good enough

In all friendship as ever

James