King of the Mantle

Musings from an Urn. Includes two lines from a Seamus Heaney poem.

King of the Mantle

Looking back,

The year has been a trying one.

Pacing back and forth in the middle of the day.

Slow, delicate mornings  where waking up is a task,

And making coffee is torture.

No one calls on Monday

Tuesday comes.

Each day it gets worse.

Simple tasks,

No one to do them with.

Watching TV

Cooking dinner

Taking care of the cat

Driving in your car.

 

The bar-

Mike finally remembers

Not to ask where I am; He knows better now.

He even knows your drink order.

I wonder if he’s forgotten mine

You  will not sleep tonight

You never sleep enough

You used to sleep so soundly

 

I want to whisper

In your ear.

But I cannot speak

I cannot reach you,

 

On your knees each night, hands clasped, praying.

But it is useless

I am stuck here

In this wretched container.

When I asked to be spread in the ocean,

I hoped you would make sure

That all of me got there.

Porcelain and steel,

wood and iron,

a shipwreck in the arctic.

your old hands are weathered like

 a sailor’s map.

Run your fingers over the clasp

take me off this shelf

point me toward the window.

 

You are alone,

Deathly, sickeningly alone.

it isn’t recent

A long stretch,

A gradual decay.

And at this moment of conscious thinking

It sinks in that I ran out time

To see it

 To admire you

I want you to

Stare at me, Talk to me

But my mouth is bound

By ash and clasp

I attempt a whisper:

 

Jack and soda, tall glass

 

No sweetheart, I don’t want my cane

 

Yes I would love ice cream

 

Is that him? Let me speak with him

 

The only thing spoken is the whisper of the wind.

It says more than I ever could

 

This life was lost on me,

nothing but a device for my own misery.

I threw in the towel,

I welcomed what was to come next.

 

But how I brought you with me,

the way I dragged you through the muck of my own demise.

 

I will never wash my hands of that feeling

it is what keeps me here.

watching, waiting for you recover.

 

Instead you sit

On the bed,

Waiting to join me.

It’s a terrible thing to wish for.

 

I wish you’d stop.

It makes me sad to know

That someone had always been there.

I had always been there.

Though always you were alone.

 

 

 

Author's Note

It's a very personal piece and I'm looking for feedback because it's difficult for me to distance myself from its meaning and look purely at form.

Reviews

[.quan.011.]

This amazing poem with all of emotional details.