Muscle memory
By lavadis
- 2219 reads
My father never went away
he just became a yesterday
he told me people swing the bat
he wasn't willing to do that
his father taught him to be free
which meant that he abandoned me
he left his son in mortal fear
but mortals are not welcome here
Almost like a dream
but with a bagel for a halo
he discovered living was a place
to help the pain grow
his final words to me were to be
better than a martyr
a lie within a truth
is just part of life's stigmata
always take advantage
of the loneliness of angels
and all the while my mother
just stared out the window
at strangers
Time tells lies
it steals our lives
I saw him playing silent games
which taught me words
that warn me when it rains
I followed him to war-torn lands
and washed the blood
that covered both his hands
Eventually, there's silence in the pain
He told us to listen to the bloodshed in the rain
Writing of him now
I cannot even see his face
I took the time to wash him off
and didn't leave a trace
- Log in to post comments
Comments
I shaved my dad before he
I shaved my dad before he died. Lived with him and worked with him. Never knew him. The strange thing is my sisters say I'm the dead spit of him. hmmmm.
- Log in to post comments
I suppose we all end up with
I suppose we all end up with a woman (or man) we've only know a short while. I guess we'll fall back on they were a different generation. We're a different generation too. Perhaps if we write it down that'll help?
- Log in to post comments
I like the lines the resonate with so may people.
Therein lies no greater truth than these words. I concur. Time tells lies. It steals our lives.
William E Alexander
- Log in to post comments
I read my own father in so
I read my own father in so much of your words; I felt you spoke for so many of us sons who never properly connected with their fathers; in particular with the generation that came back from WWII.
Dougie Moody
- Log in to post comments
All the conversations we
All the conversations we never had - this has struck a chord with so many already. Thank you lavadis, for sharing it here.
This is our Poem of the Week - Congratulations! It's also our Facebook and Twitter Pick of the Week
Please share/retweet if you enjoyed it too
- Log in to post comments
This is beautiful
It feels sad and very concrete at the same time.
It made me think of my father. He is from the generation after WWII and his own father didn't fight in that specific one, because he was an invalid of the ill-conceived African campaigns of the Italian regime and passed when my dad was 18. My dad is caring in his own, very practical, way, but very much a product of that struggle to communicate, especially on the feeling side of things.
I recently asked him if it served him and the men of his generation well to be so stern and unwilling to face and discuss their emotions (unless they get angry, that is). He just smiled and shrugged and said 'I can't say if it's good or bad, it is what it is.' We speak often about how things have changed between his generation and mine. I suppose having one nosy daughter who won't stop prodding has forced him out of his shell a bit. :-)
It also makes me think of my husband's family, which is interesting for me to experience, as an only child who grew up in a woman-dominated household. My husband has two brothers, and his dad is even less communicative than mine, and yet you can see he cares deeply in a totally practical, unspoken way. It's all in the acts.
Sorry for the excessively long commentary. Your poem gave me an excuse to think fondly of the men in my life I care about. So many times, I wish they could just express how they feel and experience the powerful bonding that comes from being openly vulnerable. Especially in suffering, but also in joy. I guess, like my dad says, it is what it is, and we all strive for the best we can get and offer others with what life gave us to work with.
Your dad offered you silence and you turned it into these words. That in itself is beautiful alchemy.
Magnolia Fay
- Log in to post comments