Neither poem nor plenty remarkable reality, amusing nonetheless

Is your father downstairs playing music?

"I don't know, maybe."

I don't particularly look up. Whatever she's about to say, by the simple fact of it concerning my father, will make her look bad. And I generally try to like my mother, no matter how hard she often tries to be unlikable.

He's probably down there. He's down there a lot you know. And guess who does all the paperwork. Not him.

My mother is referring to paying the bills. The scribbling and envelopes part.

"Well, he makes a lot of money."

The facts often become waterlogged and soggy. I throw them in the drier when nobody else will.

That's what he thinks,

she says as she skirts around this remark and departs.

he makes all the money and everyone else does everything else.

These words echo down the hallway

and the hallway shudders,

hands tied behind its back

repeating this utterance.

ELSE slips through the crack of the bathroom door as it slams onto her sentence, barely shutting in time before the facts can nip at her heels.

"Sounds like a fair arrangement to me!"

My words reverberate against the walls of the vacuum she leaves in her wake, in her haste. They skip like stones across the deep waters of her denial. I am fully aware that she does not hear me and might not have even had she been in the room.

Reviews

[Terpsichore]

'Sticks and stones will break my bones
But words will never harm me.' Whoever wrote that, didn't have a clue.


T

[Beccy]

The word insightful come nowhere doing justice to this poem;
and I can only add that Ed, (who I adore,) has it spot on.


Beccy

[M. Shepherd]

:) thank you for the kind words Beccy

[Chris]

You can't take back the unsaid words... you just know they were right there IN YOUR MIND all the time. And you CAN forgive the said words - but never ever forget them.

[zunie frost]

Great creativily !!well done

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i know families like this---the males spend all their time working---and then at other things, hardly with family at all...they are the money, but not the heart.

[M. Shepherd]

Ah Jacob, yes.. both my parents have to contend with that in different ways - but as far as the heart is concerned my father is definitely affected - he wants to be heart, he wants to be more than money. And he is. Much much more. But it's hard to place the necessity of making and managing money into a love scenario like family and not watch as its acidity corrodes certain things over time.
Thank you for the thoughts. :)

[Ed Hart]

your camera takes pictures around corners, and from the inside out

[M. Shepherd]

I've known my mother all my life and am only now beginning to learn her.
That strange coming of age.

[M. Shepherd]

This gave me a big dumb smile, I forgot to say that. I love how you put that, a poem in itself Ed. Thank you. :)

[Donald Meikle]

Read all so far, thoroughly impressed by your ability to express yourself and yet remain whole within such pounding feelings. Hang in there I'd like to say it gets better but it doesn't. You do.

[M. Shepherd]

Thanks for the feedback!

[. serah .]

-- i don't think it's possible for you to not be brimming with poetry... -- i'm thinking about the precision in the expression "The facts often become waterlogged and soggy"... and the image of the hallway... and "ELSE"... and "the deep waters of her denial"... and i'm thinking about how "The scribbling and envelops part" is so critical for existence and yet just the detail of a transaction... (especially for a musician)... -- maybe this is a good time for me to confess that i live in near-complete isolation to dodge transactions in life and don't even make money... -- am hoping to change that... and somehow this poem makes me hope... thank you for that...

[M. Shepherd]

:) Thank you Serah - I seek precision of expression above all, I get frustrated when I can't find it.. often. I'm thrilled you find it to be precise.

[. serah .]

-- you're very welcome, Marcie... -- it's a privilege to read your unique kinda precision in poetic expression... :)