Magnets Open All the Same II

Mar 14, 2006 in Poetry

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.

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Sam Harrelson lives in Asheville, NC and is pursuing his PhD in Religious Studies (Early Christian Origins). Sam is also an award winning blogger, speaker and online community strategist.

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