Magnets Open All the Same II
Here’s the second installment of Magnets Open All the Same. My grandfather from my mother’s side has had a strange and lasting impact upon my life. Some of my fascination with "fallen hero" characters come from the relationship I shared with him. At the present, he is the closest relative of mine to die which I remember, so the transition from life to death is an underlying current in this poem.
See You on Tuesday
I walked into his deep
cave of a room, lit
by a dull yellow bulb
perched on a broken stem,
a flower already dead
with its sterility
poking on top,
reversed in its nature
– and all wrong.
The room smelled like
piss and he just laid
there with his mouth
hidden in the creases
of his prickly whiskered
face somewhere between
his noseand bone
- wrong curled up chin.
The bulge under the
yellow sheet ended
at his hips and
everything below
was already dead.
A foot poked out
from under the
cover and his toe
nail half hung to
his shriveled up toe
- and all wrong.
I walked towards him,
smelling the empty
bottle on the table
beside him, feeling
the plywood bending
under my younger feet
– and all wrong.
He grabbed a tube and
jabbed it into his
shriveled manhood
and the piss came out
– he didn’t look.
He smoked the stale
cigarette while he
drained himself then
he spoke to me,
but I didn’t hear
him over the loudness
of his yellow piss
running into the bottle.
I sat down in his Ezekiel
wheel chair beside his bed
and he told me how
to cook a red breast.
posted: 06 March 14
under: Poetry