dying-dad

for morgan, the first poet I ever saw.

 

 

 

   Dying forms a complacent wind. It blows its volume thru the steeple of the town, announcing that

   the end is near. It has no competition, with wins and losses, now, in short supply. A little boy

   trying to run off, he would read his new poems to me and showed me a land that I have come

   to love so much. Mother stood by the bedside, illuminated as a day flower, neutralized  and

   voiceless as a lead painting. The whole family was called to come quickly, and we did, though

   (and it is legal) other old men and a child, knowing the overproff of your sacrosanct legacy,

   waited you out.

 

 

   Dead, without desease is a safe house; not like turning off a lamp in the dark but more like

   blowing out candles after the sacred writings are read.

 

 

   I have so much to remember now;

   "If elected, I will alter the

   manifest of same

   and make

   petals serenade the

   leaves".

   The threadbare sequitur,

   the sorrow of the room.

   Funny, this recollection s**t;

   Janae, when she was four,

   could clearly remember

   collecting rocks, but

   cant recall the face

   of the grandfather

   that washed them off.

   When they carried you

   out, I didnt cry, but

   my nostrils filled with

   noisy reds

   and my voice had

   the sound of a strange

   land;

 

   an unpopulated town

   or a long, long,

   corridor with

   so few American clicks.

Reviews

[BLBrown]

Very deep and such a heavy topic. "Make petals serenade the leaves..." Love that, very clever.

[Emily B]

i've been in that room before, the cold gray man was my father, almost a stranger to me

and there were other rooms and momentsw, the memories crowded close as I read your words