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Forrest Cain
Member
since 2000-04-21
Posts 306
Chas.,W.V. USA

0 posted 2000-06-24 06:35 PM


"Please somebody please go find the children they
must be hiding and I thought that I heard somebody
call but I can`t find them."

The Long Road Home 2

Still
we need miracles
to go back and comfort Mom
as she stands behind a nondescript curtain
just a small girl peeking out a dingy
apartment window where all she sees are shades of gray and to wrap a blanket around her shivering body
and carry her to bed or to read her to sleep as we sing her lullabies of hope and love.

we need miracles
to go back with wolfhounds and wolfbane
and woodsmen with axes, to kill the wolf
that rages through her veins, a squat on
haunches nose upturned howling at the moon
"Grandma what big teeth you have. The better to eat you with my dear."
(note wolf=lupus which is an autoimmune disease where the body attacks itself.)

we need miracles
to go back and pull the gun from Dad’s mouth
and the bottle from his hand and to give him
that that he needed but never had.
"and he cried for his mama but nobody came his mama long since had passed away and he longed to be with her to be held in her arms just to be her little baby once again ,just to be her little baby..."
(Exert from E.Jackson song.)

we need miracles
to go back to that certain winter where Dad
on steep pitched roofs of wind and ice performed sleight of hand tricks
and other high theatrics abra-ca-dab-ra
nothing up my sleeve as he pulls
a ruh-ruh- wabbit from his hat
and that we could tell him the greater
magic wasn’t the new bicycles for Christmas
rather something else.

we need miracles
to go back and save Uncle Roy and cousin Jimmy, to jump in and pull them from the murky waters of the Elk River.
And to remove the terrible grief from Dad’s face as David Pauline tells him they’ve drown. And to take away the even greater pain from David’s face for having had to say it. David still just a boy and Dad leaning against the porch post head bowed and eyes covered with his right forearm as the tears
tumbled silently down his cheeks in slow motion to the ground.
"The pain he was feeling could not be explained but it’s something like forty days of rain, yea something like forty..."
(Excerpt from E. Jackson song Little Angels."

we need miracles
to go back to the flood on Garrison Ave.
and to grip Dad’s hand and to hold him
as he hangs by a taunt rope arm outstretched
to grasp the hand of the little girl who
slipped from his fingertips into the raging
waters to drown. (26 people drown that night
and Dad saved many but only remembers
the one he didn’t.)
"Somewhere over the rainbow way up high
there’s a place that I heard of once in a
lullaby."

we need miracles
to go back and save our childhood friends
Arthur and Theresa and Jimmy and Billy
and Debbie and Roger and Freddie Williams.
from wrecks and ropes and things that kill.
"Where have all the flowers gone
long time passing, where have all
the flowers gone, long time ago."

"we need miracles
to go back and finish the half colored page
and to connect the dots and fill in the blanks.
to calm our souls and make us whole and
to read the unwritten book in my brother`s head
"Heart In A Bottle."
and to understand, to just understand
what it is.
"Humpty Dumpty set on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall and all the
Kings horses and...the men couldn’t put
us together again."

we need miracles
to go back and end the pain and suffering
where loss upon loss builds until innocence
dies a thousand deaths
and we know in our deepest self
what has been has been
that we can’t go back and pull Dad
from the fire(burned to death while trying to start a kerosene heater while drunk.)
or stop Mom from chasing butterflies
and Santa Claus and Superman are truly dead
and even Elyse with an angel on each shoulder
and a blessing in her brush can’t bring them back("ashes to ashes, dust to dust."
and the far sun sets in the east and in the north
and I feel a deepening despair to quote
Hemingway "It’s as though a young person has died for no reason at all."
and with a growing sense of unreality
I stand alone
as cold and empty
as the dark between
the stars and watch
for the light.

forrest cain     on a hilltop
2000             a long time ago
                  far far away  
            there lived two little boys.



[This message has been edited by Forrest Cain (edited 06-25-2000).]

© Copyright 2000 O. Forrest Cain - All Rights Reserved
Elyse
Member
since 2000-04-16
Posts 414
Apex (think raleigh) NC
1 posted 2000-06-25 04:52 AM


ahh forrest. so much hurting in your life. but i suppose the other side had to come out in such a poem.  i do have comments (you knew i would)

first, is that an epigram or the continuation of the other part at the beginning there?  

i dont know about these long lines.  i would want to chop them up.  some parts where you have a bunch of long lines seem a little prosaic.  too many articles and "and"s i suspect    it is a personal style thing, you dont have to pay me any attention.

the footnotes ( as i assume they are) were helpful if a little distracting.  i know you cant make footnotes on the forum, so i should erase this, but i dont seem to be doin that, in fact, i seem to be writing more about it.  hmm, go figure.

im not too big on the song excerpts either (especially the 40 days of rain one, because my old english teacher used to use that lyric, and it takes me back in an icky way.  i hope you are not secretly him by the way.  that would just be wrong)  maybe you could use bits of them, but im more interested in how you express those feelings, not other people.  maybe its just the ones i dont know that im hung up on, i dont seem to have a problem with somewhere over the rainbow and humpty dumpty.  how odd.

i cant believe you put me in this poem!  i am SO flattered.  im blushing, you cant see, but i am    

i do, by the way, really love your ending (not just cuz im in it).  especially the last few lines.  they are beautiful.

i hope ive been helpful (and did not just ramble on)
luv Elyse



Tim Gouldthorp
Member
since 2000-01-03
Posts 170

2 posted 2000-06-25 07:06 AM


Forrest,
Well i'd agree about making it a bit shorter, but I hoped that you'd connect the 'then and there' of Part 1 with something meaningful in the present, and I think in the end of part 2 you do this.
-Tim

Forrest Cain
Member
since 2000-04-21
Posts 306
Chas.,W.V. USA
3 posted 2000-06-25 08:11 AM


Elyse much thanks for reading this rather dsjointed poem . It was written for my brother and I never expected anyone else to read it. Many ups and downs
like all alcohol families but despite the poverty, bloodshed and constant fear we survived. "heart In
A Bottle" a book my brothers writing speaks of this
dysfunctional lifestyle and he`d forgotten some of the happier times. So I wrote the Long Road home part1 but I realized I couldn`t ignore the other so tried to put the behavior of my parents in perspective as it related to there pain and suffering .From being raised as an orphan to the terrible visions my Dad carried back with him from Korea(excluding the footrot). Seeing
so much death there consumed him. He was and is still our hero. My brother and myself were in the Marine Corp together and survived(1971) we fought
terrible demons and have endured. Together we are
a force to be reckoned with. We survive by songs and writing.  Please Find The Children is my song of course I havn`t written it yet. The lines I used of yours I love so much I had to use them. I hope Hemingway isn`t jealous because I liked yours better.
I left out large parts of this poem the coalmine deaths, the shooting feuds, running moonshine etc.

enough rambling
your biggest fan luv forrest

P.S. Elyse you`ve seen my spelling and grammer
if I was your old English teacher would I be
this bad. If the line Something Like Forty Days Of Rain didn`t originate with my brother, I will add one that did.



[This message has been edited by Forrest Cain (edited 06-25-2000).]

Lighthousebob
Member Elite
since 2000-06-14
Posts 4725
California
4 posted 2000-06-25 07:55 PM


Thank you for Part II.  A wonderful conclusion.  Now, I understand a little better how these memories of home can be miracles in our healing.  I like your reference to popular songs and phrazes because it helps bring me back to the era
in which you are writing.
Thank you,

Bob<><

ps. lullabys is spelled lullabies.

Forrest Cain
Member
since 2000-04-21
Posts 306
Chas.,W.V. USA
5 posted 2000-06-25 11:19 PM


Elyse this is acontinuation of a single writing about my brother/self and parts of our life together. I left out much because it would make little sense to anyone but my family.

Tim thanks for reading this overlong writing.
I was depressed and had just been diagnosed
with hepatitis C and thought my time was short. (not so I've got another hundred years or so I hope.)

LHB I do appreciate your help with my spelling and am going to get spell check.
Thank you for your very nice comments.
I need to know sometimes if it was just
liked proper form or not.

Your friend forrest

eldridgejackson
Member
since 2000-04-30
Posts 91

6 posted 2000-06-27 12:12 PM


Every word and sentence of this poem is true and really paints the portrait of what happened in our lives as children.
Thank you for writing this poem.
It touched me.

I agree you should use a spell check. You already have one Microsoft word. Open it up and play with it.

James aka eldridgeJackson


mysticharm
Member
since 2000-06-08
Posts 189
Canada
7 posted 2000-06-27 02:19 PM


Wow Forrest, this is really the flip side of the coin but it holds true doesn't it! With all the precious memories that make us smile there are painful memories that make us cry.

I'm more interested in what your words say then in noticing if you have spelling errors, (that point of view is probably based on a teacher that loved cracking us across the knuckles with a yard stick when we made an error)so I make a point of not cracking anything across anyone elses knuckles  

Besides, I look at spell check the same way I look at a calculator, doesn't make you use your brain, but that's just my opinion.

Thanks for sharing Forrest  
your friend debbie

Never underestimate the Power of Purpose.
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift.
That's why it's called the 'Present'
unkn

Forrest Cain
Member
since 2000-04-21
Posts 306
Chas.,W.V. USA
8 posted 2000-06-27 09:28 PM


Bless you Debbie you're the only kind and
understanding soul who forgives my poor spelling. Life's hard when you only have a third grade education.(thay's pretty good by
West Virginia standards.) Again I thank you for taking the time to read this since it's
mostly a family history .I look forward to more of your postings.

Your friend forrest

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