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Sylvia & Anne
| Open Poetry #50 |
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Sylvia & Anne |
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soul drifter Senior Member
since 2004-09-08
Posts 711Colorado |
I very much apologize in advance for the considerable length of this, but I couldn't stop till it was all out. A story more than a simple poem. __________ Sylvia & Anne I am forty years, eight months and five days old the same blood I have in me from the womb pumped by the same heart this my engine and this, my frame sculpted slowly, softly by time everything in me says I am alive alive alive I roll the word around my tongue for a moment and think on my favorite poets, so alike in many ways both women both mothers and wives both brilliant with their hearts plugged into their typewriters and pens both dead Gone long gone but pieces of them still cling like two leaves the color of blood in a November tree both women dead by their own choosing and I cannot help but wonder about the moment when their choice was all there was left I wonder did any thought of their children grip them before the final act did their innocence and beauty strike them like a match whatever they thought, the flame was extinguished and nothing could stop them nothing ever could in the last fleeting seconds all was silence and death, as he always will, closed in Oh death, a face I was unfamiliar with just another blur in the street crowd but he’s been following us all no matter how long we live how far we go one summer night just a heartbeat ago he came ‘round to the house and the distant voice on the phone said my mother had ceased to be it was but half a heartbeat ago almost nine years now as I sit and write this and like all dead she left us here clearing away the cobwebs on memories the sunlit days emptied of barest thought while under all these many layers of me I ride upon the violent white rapids of emotion all of this and more whispers unreal truth into my still young and not yet ready ears I am alive she is not you and you and you and I and the sun and millions of unknown people and hell, even the world itself are still very much alive but she, at last, is nothing but gone There are so many who’ve passed and many more will including me but for now it’s winter I walk amid the ruins of the day white and grey is all there is and these boney fingered trees they reach out hungrily for my hair and flesh and a bitter blue winter snaps at my heels as ever I carry my worries like precious children around the weary daily circle of my life I am alone but oh I am not with you ghostly poets in fact I will see many more dawns than either of you did either of you know the glow of first sunlight on your face by your scribblings if you ever did, you forgot a shame, I think, shaking your hands off my shoulder I am a solitary man, a poem growing like a bloom from my heart, head and hands it’s all about where I am and where I may be going I have hopes and plans and dreams the dead just have death but me I am ever curious to see where the day may take me. "Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.-Langston Hughes |
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BluesSerenade Member Patricius
since 2001-10-23
Posts 10549By the Seaside |
Dear soul drifter, your poem is beautiful and your ending warms my heart. Life is for the living, indeed. Be well good poet. |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Zach, more like a ballad. You've made it a good day to read some poetry. Thank you! |
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Temptress
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-06-15
Posts 7136Mobile, AL |
I have never been able to capture this subject. This shows how the dead haunt our thoughts and then shows our will to go on living. There are just too many great images to quote here. Enjoyed. "Maybe that's the way I should go Straight into the mouth of the unknown" Shinedown |
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Paul Wilson
since 2002-07-07
Posts 4711United States |
Soul Drifter...A story of living, dying, laughter and crying we all should read and address in life before it's too late. Enjoyed thanks for sharing...Paul ~~To share my poems with you is to share my heart with you~~ |
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Michael
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-13
Posts 7666California |
This was beautiful..well, as beautiful as a writing on death can be I guess. "The dead just have death" I'm not sure I can buy into that. Not gonna get philosophical on you, don't worry, but will just say I see death as the end of my life-sentence. After which, no matter what happens, i will be free.  Just my own selfish perspective I'm sure. |
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