fathers day poem

for morgan

Take my hand.

I use to laugh at the little square comics in the Bazooka bubble gum. 

We all laughed. Even those unchanged by facts, remain.

Even when decades came to us: cancer. Balding. Judy taking a wild

shot of fentanyl and slumping over in the car.

So much of us then could be so easily unwrapped; tender and soft to chew

until each trace of sugar brings to mind such memorial. We were effortless.

We walked by mythical oceans where waves crashed, breezes blew. Where

the sky was draped in dreamlike hews. The belts on our pants, hooked

into the nearest zodiac loops. Our fathers scolding us past thorns,

the dahlia bulbs mother planted, to cross the street holding the youngest hand.

Nothing was paternity but paternity was on everything.  The discarded calendar

with days left to live. The smoldering barbeque pit. Eventually even limbs

swollen with gout goes again to combat. (or wants to). Up from Tennessee

by way of West Virginia with no discernable twang. No cotton seed renature. 

No Remus thriving by humanistic revival. Sung when the nurses turned him

on his side and pounded his back. "To loosen the phlem" the burly one said.

They said he owned land in another small town as far as the eye could see.

They said he had another family with children of past wrongs...Even another

daughter with an artistic, wedlock child. Yet no one ever mentions how

small the smoke house was, how clear the well water or how tiny mice survive the winter

huddled under Tabaco stalks eating cabin chips and drinking bat piss. It's true,

I suppose, that the architrave  opening of souls is somehow poetic.

2.

Mother stumbles thru word after easy word. Nothing howls in the background

of pastoral poetry like the wails of an old widow. 

She makes a contest out of folding the area rug with her feet. Pretending to still

kick an old mans shoes out of her path to the bathroom.

Sometimes she refused to duck down a little when entering the basement. Today a knot is on her forehead.

Sometimes a ghost comes from the spare bedroom to remind her.

Reviews

[kentuck14]

A family saga . . . a mini "Roots." Great metaphor of the bubble gum chewing and the sugar sweetness bringing back memories. The line about paternity is telling . . . we all come into this world through the seed of the father even if the father figure has gone away or has become less than definable. This poem strikes me as a mythical journey like the Greek classics . . . yet each scene is a symbol of some understanding . . . indeed every family story is a mythological journey through time and place. The family tree spreads out from one's father's seed in different directions, different meanings. The widow left behind is this story's "Penelope." The father-protagonist will never return however, and his old powerful bow is gone just like the old shoes are gone. There will be no restoration of his kingdom. The 'bump' on the head is a constant reminder.
T

[h d e rushin]

thank you my friend for your insight....dana

[Robert Trakofler]

The way you make a statement is so unique, your voice is always matter of fact... blatant but with a pleading and sweet tone at the same time. I feel as if you are in the room when I read you and the curtain raises to a vision in motions like you have a direct link to your occipital lobe. You have a way of carrying your reader to the witness window so naturally and the thoughtfulness of your mindset always comes thru in HI Fi:)

[h d e rushin]

yes …."the witness window" I love it. thanks Bad for your insight.....dana

[jacob erin-cilberto]

wow, you take the idea of someone having more than one family...fathering children in more than one place....which could be seen as a negative and turn it into a positive when it comes to reflecting on a life that is ready to pass...He owned land as far as the eye could see...and has another family to mourn him...and mother with the ghost in the spare bedroom...haunted....pretending he is still there...so hard she bumps her forehead by the basement entrance. Intense sadness in this...but again, you tell us a story that come so alive with your imagination, and imagery and dialogue.
j.

[h d e rushin]

thank you brother....I lost my father in 95 to smoking too much, eating too much sugar and salt and drinking liquor. But he was a good hard working man who loved his family.I guess that's all that really matters....dana

[Lydia Shutter]

The raw brutal honesty of this dug into my soul. Watching a parent die is the most horrible nightmare any child can live through...and worse if the child is young when it is happening. I could picture the older woman folding and unfolding the rug...the rug that used to have dirt from his shoes on it. Oh, Dana, this one is overwhelmingly sad....but so well written. Lydi**

[h d e rushin]

thank you dearest. I don't know if your own father still calls this earth place his home. But I think you know what having one "really" means by your comment...I love and miss you....dana

[Lydia Shutter]

My Daddy passed 25 years ago, but I miss him every day. Be well, Dana. Lydi**