tiredofvampires

I find this absolutely heartbreaking -- and deeply disturbing.

It's a powerful and evocative piece, filled with tragedy. But it seems there is an even worse tragedy that is not apparent in the poem directly. That's where your backstory is, I imagine.

I feel myself wondering what happened here...what happened between the brotherly love and the end of that, which is evident at the end. This is not just a poem about the "ultimate sacrifice" -- this is about someone who has banished another from their heart, and I find that an even greater tragedy somehow.

Me. Me. Me! Me! Me!! ME! ME!!!

I see me in every line. But you just might have the whole world for a friend. Anyone who has ever felt broken should read this and be lifted up. As far as I'm concerned, it should be the eNotalone site motto.

Dags, no one who writes like that can say he hasn't lived!!

I love the expanded version too, and everything you added. I'm just so happy to see it here in the Poetry forum, as you said you'd put it here. This is also where it belongs.

You've a heart of diamonds. Strongest material ever, clear, precious.

How loving is a love that can never forgive?

Well I shall engrave it into my most treasured quote tablet for keeps.

He would be quite a man.

Thank you, thank you....

Do you know the source of that quote, Dags? It's so perfect.

*starts bawling again like a baby*

Maybe you should write the other poem as well, too. That's a great beginning...

It's so hard to see through the thicket of missing the flesh-and-blood form of the person who we love. But what you saying is so true -- if that is taken, that is only a piece of the picture. The love and the bond, and what was known and shared, really cannot be scathed by death. History, our personal history has been made and writ and there is no taking it back. I do believe that we become infused with the nature of this person's love, with the elements of their soul, to the point that it's just part of our matrix.

And heck, anything Dexy's gets a nod from me, too. (Suddenly I don't feel as old, if you're hip to Dexy's! )

^Thank you, Jaded, for your VERY kind words and compliments. They do mean a lot to me.

Writing is my channel...but even that only approximates some things.

I have weathered many losses and profound griefs, but this feels insurmountable at times. Which is most of the time now, and it's crippling. What I'd give to turn back the clock...to have kissed righter frogs...to have "healed" more, on time...it seems like a dream sometimes. A dream that I won't have my dream, THIS dream. There are no substitutions for this one.

I thought for some time about posting in the Grief forum, because that's all I can say about this: it's something dying. It's not fair to the folks on that forum who have lost people in their lives to post there. But I do feel it's an aspect of me dying all the same. Sometimes, I feel it's my very me that's dying; the oldest and first and last part of me. How does a fabric survive when you pull out the warp? Some say there is still hope, and I keep a bedside vigil. But who am I kidding? I hear the death rattle.

Each and every post here makes tears stream down my cheeks anew. The care of people who wish me well alongside my feeling of utter solitariness in facing it by myself has me on my knees. I wish I had prayer. But there is nothing here that can be granted anymore, shy of a miracle -- and I mean in practically Biblical proportions -- appearing.

This was not in the plan.

I've had a few years to put it aside, to temper my growing anxiety, and keep the hope alive. Everyone kept telling me, "There's still time!" and I clung to that for dear life. But I feel I am cupping a dying ember, blowing on it and seeing it fade before my eyes.

Nothing is more horrific than being carted to the execution platform, that ride there. Where you know you have a few precious moments still to imagine breathing, to be in this life as you know it. To think, "There are still a few chances still yet here, aren't there?...." But the bell tolls for me.

Anyway. Thank you so much again. Sorry to go off here...I should post a thread instead of going on and on here.

The feedback is greatly welcomed here, and appreciated....thank you to both of you for your reflections.

I'll have to have a look at that vid, DB...

I've never heard of or been to the group you mention, melrich, but I will surely look into it. Your encouragement means a lot to me and it's quite a big boost to think someone else finds it that worthy.

There is no truly redeeming compensation, nor comfort, for what I feel I'm losing here...but if "art" is what I'm left with...may that be a last endeavor. Thank you again.

Another beauty, Dags.

This is the truth of things, isn't it?

I well up at this stanza:

You aren’t something that can be given or taken away

You are within me

Longing to be understood

Waiting to shine

The separation that first occurs when your dearest is taken dissolves separation.

This mirrors a feeling I have at present so closely, it's absolutely EERIE -- but how perfectly you've put it. Every line belongs, and the end...gives me a shiver. Simply wonderful.

Thank you, friends...

This pain is so terrible...I can't find any words for it. Not in prose, anyway.

Mothers -- !

I used to be amongst you,

at the very beginning

when I was ushered in

through the human echo.

Wicked fiends and gracious saints,

I came in and joined you.

Mothers -- !

I used to be amongst you,

surrounded by maids,

other mothers on all fours,

masks and gloves,

vapors and herbs,

all animals,

all together now as one animal,

Mother.

************

“She died in childbirth” --

As they did in huts of clay

and thatch and woven walls,

Arctic ice and out in

fields of rice,

in the crags of mountains,

knees bending over stars and high noon.

Their time has come,

since the time rivers bathed us all,

every last one.

And rivers have lain at the feet

of what Mothers’ bones know.

“She died in childbirth” --

Crimson cries splitting the skies,

every sphere shaking with

chains of tears.

Faces drugged in sweat, legs like jaws

shudder silent --

while the stains soak through

all of night and seep into the sun.

A flare bursts,

warm wailing is here intact,

coursing veins are plucked

pulsing from the

No-longer-intact:

lacerated, ruptured, hemorrhagic --

Her coal eyes turning from scarlet

to grey

to black.

Mothers -- !

I once was amongst you, when I was five

and I pulled plastic Suzie doll

from my loins to bathe in

the sink;

when I fed her to

my breast of ribs,

inside a baby nightgown.

Mothers -- !

I once was amongst you, when I was fourteen

and joined your tribe in small pink blots.

I rejoiced and

clutched them secretly,

washed them out

in the sink.

“Died in Childbirth”.

I draw a finger ‘round

nymphal navel. In the mirror,

a firm and placid arc, I place

my palm upon this

circle. No one will ever

kiss this spot

for what it contains.

I will never stretch here

and pucker through tented garb.

I will never swell with another,

never awaken to your thumping

pangs.

My roots will not grow

into that essential braid linking

Our knots, end to end — blue, purple

And strong as a white tide.

We will never exchange The Elements,

You will never breathe through me.

And I will never seize those

around my feet

who know well by experience

because now it’s

my turn.

No one will gather ‘round as I

lower myself to the bottom of Ages.

I won’t be Spring, nor Summer.

I won’t be gathered into the center

of the Earth,

spread East to West

a voice of peals and rockets,

defying everything,

allowed anything,

howling free as

the wilderness.

I will never be scooped up and told to roll,

I will never have the rough cloth

dabbed against my temples,

throbbing with shrill brain.

I will never look over the hill of my own making,

the bastion you are leaving,

and feel my soul erupt.

No, I stay safely closed.

My entrance never to be an exit.

Darkness falls upon my prepared bed,

the bed I’ve prepared for you

again and again.

My deep and soft chamber

you will never visit

on the way to becoming.

No, I will not be one of them,

with battle scars, or marks of distinction,

skin never the same.

I will never be split, I am

safe from your head ready

between my pelves.

I will never perish on the sands, in the paddies, on the

dirt or the high bed, nor in a polished room of scrubs.

There will be no drum, no sudden fury for me.

I will never be a million years old

in the span of one day.

I will never perish with your breath severed

from mine, and you will never love

on without me

because I gave my life that you

be born.

But I’ll perish of your

never finding, never

filling me.

Without sisters and grandmothers,

without forceps and cutting edges,

desperate drips or fingers thrust inside,

people with their hair up

to help me live.

I’ll stay back,

untouched and tied.

Clean.

Composed.

Barren.

Nullipara,

null and void.

Non-gravida, a grievous seed.

“They died in childbirth”, a grave

dug and marked for heroines.

I dig a grave inside myself

for unused soil and rain,

the dances that won’t be danced,

the light I won’t bring you to,

the nest that will never be flown.

I dig a grave for

my chance to die.

I really dig this:

As the bass drum to your beautiul fife.

You're on your way.

This is so evocative and alive! A real gem. Brava!!

WHAT??!!!

And here I thought it was a moto-jumping or some other vehicular accident!!

Gee. Ya sure do miss a lotta great acts sitting on a rock and writing in the sand with a stick.

I really, really like the first stanza...

Very intriguing rest...but maybe you could work the phrasing a bit so the last lines have the same flow as the beginning?

*siiigh*

How do you rhyme like that?

Gimme some o' that.

Wowie kazowie all over. But this is tops:

tie on straight but he neck all crooked

once he had a hat but he know she took it

he pushing down donuts with wine

I feel crooked just reading it. Someone call a chiropractor. Seriously.

I be num nums then, soon!

*pops thumb in mouth*

I definitely do feel like my heart's been swiped.

And yet...it doesn't seem to be missing, in that you still have so much of it to go around.

Simple, but not simple. Elegant.

Otherwise, all I can say is...I know.

Grazy cood!

Great siggy, too, btw. Had to swipe it for the quote files...so thanks for that.

Ooh. Ok, that's pretty damn good I must say.

Everything that feels good inside that is both full...and forlorn.

You?

The Widening Sky

by Edward Hirsch

I am so small walking on the beach

at night under the widening sky.

The wet sand quickens beneath my feet

and the waves thunder against the shore.

I am moving away from the boardwalk

with its colorful streamers of people

and the hotels with their blinking lights.

The wind sighs for hundreds of miles.

I am disappearing so far into the dark

I have vanished from sight.

I am a tiny seashell

that has secretly drifted ashore

and carries the sound of the ocean

surging through its body.

I am so small now no one can see me.

How can I be filled with such a vast love?

***

(Ciao tutti, belle gente...ci vediamo tra poco.)