younger in appearance
clean shaven
looking much like he did in the ‘60’s
animated and fluid
the dramatic gestures
the mouth rigid and tense
ruminating anger.
I found you far from childhood,
dusted you off
smoothed your wrinkles
my fingers caught
in the Gordian knot
of your hair
hair that smelled like oil
or rancid fat.
clipped your nails
caressed the stump fingers
- reminded me of hot dogs when I was little -
wanted to bite them,
still do.
all of the photos are gone,
the ones I had placed in your room.
"where did they go?" - I ask.
you wave your arm in dismissal,
stump leg jutting out over
the hospital mattress -
another lost part
taken by a mean motorcycle
and a meaner tree
decades ago.
"where did they go!?" - I ask again,
"the photos, the leg, the fingers,
YOU!" –
I do not even know anymore
what I am asking
reduced once more to shadow,
cast down by your falling eye-lids
the pupils formless and vacant,
blind to my innocent yearnings
the tension of guilty fulfillment.
now daddy consumes the poems
like he consumed me
and everything and everybody else,
naturally and without thought,
a lion eating its kill.
but nothing stays down easy with him
too much effort involved.
and here I am clinging
to the path of least resistance.
what an impossible imprint,
this ocean of grief.
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Rolling
metaness
James M. Emmerling
Chuck A. Stetson
Jimenace
Newton Fortuin
Salon.com
Comments
Love to know if this is what a "poem" - like this - is meant to do?
An Ocean of Grief....
yet it is but an imprint....
an imprint is something produced by Pressure...
upon something...upon your Heart, Mind, Soul....
an impossible imprint? how "impossible"? impossible in the sense of impossible to remove", or impossible that it is real?...i mean really real, in the sense of that is all there is to you....this is your final form?
for it is not real....it is imprinted upon you....
How to remove this imprint? the path of least resistance is
the pragmatic way of living yr daily life....i know about this path, and it is a good one....for like water, we reach our level, and stay awhile, and move on....always moving on...but
int the moving, we change...the moving here is the shifting of your image of your father, i think....these re-
surrections of him...i am familiar with that....my father ended up a demented childish old man. not the dad i once knew. yet in my head i remembered when his spirit was whole, that brief time...
this is life...we grow into our form...we shine briefly, most of us...yet this is not the way it must be...this is not nature's intent...society is the killer here...it is absurd, corrupt, and corrupting...it makes monsters of us. Yet we cannot forget our fathers' true glory, the man he was or should have been, for it is the real thing, not the
corrupt caricature he became. Look waht livingin the world did to yr dad: he lost his leg...Ha! you ask : whered everything go, dammit..the pictures, the leg , the whole deal...where, dad? he dunno...but you do...
" a lion eating his kill"....sounds terrible until...you remember you are calling yr dad a lion.Perhaps he was a lion of a man. Lions are the ones who go down hard. My dad was a lion, and the world beat him down. The world will not abide men to be lions. They are to be friendly bears at most...at most...like anthony hopkins or sean connery....big ol bears....in their caves...privacy..
Lions are different. They are the real masters of their domain, for they have a certain pride that will not be contained. It leaks out in everything they do, and it is punished severely. See my little silly thing, "The Lion, the chimp,the Bitch, thethe wArroom".
He consumes you, now, i would venture a guess, because there is unfinished business. Do you somehow have the responsiblity of imagining him back to his real status, as a kind of...ancestor worship, in the sense of honoring his soul, bringing it to light? You may be advised by wellmeaning people to "let it go", blah blah...but that is your decision...and if he is consuming you & invading you, you
really dont have that as an option, do you? "Consumption"....
hm...."Generous"...who is being generous here..is it you, to him??
You have taken upon yrself a mighty task, and a truly loving one. He may not deserve it, but what if he does, somehow?
I think i might be on the right track, as i notice this is poem #1...in a series..
Jim
he reduces you to shadow...or he is reduced to shadow?
or does it make a difference which? both?
living in the shadows is sometimes the best way to go....the light will always always shine, i have recently learned (see "kingdom of heaven (for real)"...it is not a joke, i am NOT playin' as our cousins say...)...
the light is always always there...it wont go away just because you arent in it...altho of course you always are....even if you dont know it...the light is real...the shadows? real, too...but a choice...
and a good one, sometimes...there is rest and rejuvenation in the shadows...THATS WHAT THEY ARE FOR!
JIM AGAIN....IN THE SHADOWS, BUT AWARE THE LIGHT WILL ALWAYS RECEIVE ME...
Keep writing - more and more
(rated)
The othere half: leave everything out. in fact, dont dare write, cuz its all juvenile & been said before, etc...
It's about: the creative act, the sheer electric unfolding of stuff you never could have imagined was there , doing it almost "outside of yrself"...perhaps hats the point = to bring yrself outside of yrself!
vs. the product, the frozen relic of the act of creating it...
thanks very much for stopping by...jim
peece,
dj
Thanks.
You a pleasure to read.
I hear without being you.
One who had yellow teeth?
I chuckled. My Granddaughter?
She said that! Mom has white teeth!
Nicotine, kale green, or porcelain blue?
I want two gold front teeth under a pillow!
I thanks you for what you share @ Open Salon.
If folk want a matzo ball war I'll bring blueberries!
It doesn't make sense. I just had berry cheese cake.
Oahu? I heard Mahina means:`Moon. Moana- ocean.
It takes awhile to penetrate ... You understand... within.
Have patience. keep aboard. Waikiki. Aloha. Ono- delicious.