Lament

for this day

my pasts queue up

like street cruisers

at a mafia funeral

father, son, ghost, story

i am poured out

or divided like marbles

grainy prints and old letters

hunt me up and down the stairs

a socked columbus returns

all the time i ask if that

is all i will ever manage

this little, this loss, this day

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

such a haunting quality to this...the religious reference in the lines with double meaning of the father and son, the ghost...just managing to get through the days after such loss...
and the image of the mafia funeral is exceptional. I can't get that image out of my mind, now.

j.

[Leslie Philibert]

Jacob, my thanks for the kind words, and my best wishes.

[Eilis]

This makes me think of how we can become our stories. Or how certain events or losses in our lives can come to define us. To a certain extent, I feel like choosing the act of poetry writing is a step towards this. As so much energy is devoted to the exploration of the past.

But on the flip side, I suppose, those ghosts that are present in that everyday have the opportunity to become something other when we turn them over in our minds. There is a healing power in poetry after the passing of time.

I sense the understanding of that in between these words, but more urgently the need to see past the grip of pain and understand that there is that other place where the pain can become something more bearable.

I’m not sure, but I thought the poetry of this was compelling. I enjoy the succinctness and the way each word feels like a nail used for building some kind of structure of protection. Or, alternatively, an unraveling in an effort to start anew. It’s excellent work.