Jolly McJollyson
03-10-2007, 09:18 PM
I wrote this poem about my grandfather, who, it seems, won't be around much longer.
Papa
I wanted to write a poem about you,
but all that came out
was a page of cliches
about death
and greatness.
I failed as a poet.
Failed to realize
there are some things
which can't be written,
can't be expressed. Some pains
that language doesn't know,
that maybe
haven't been given a name
because we can't understand them, or because
we fear them.
So I stopped writing.
Instead I stood outside
in the cold
and screamed at God
while my fingers got numb.
I thought of you,
mocked by your oxygen tank,
forced to breathe from a little yellow cylinder,
and I screamed again
and again
and again.
Wordless, hopeless screams
dissipated in the air
like the breath-steam leaving my mouth,
like the oxygen leaving your tank,
like the tears leaving the eyes
of everyone who ever loved you,
and I didn't have to wonder
what it's like
when a great man dies.
Papa
I wanted to write a poem about you,
but all that came out
was a page of cliches
about death
and greatness.
I failed as a poet.
Failed to realize
there are some things
which can't be written,
can't be expressed. Some pains
that language doesn't know,
that maybe
haven't been given a name
because we can't understand them, or because
we fear them.
So I stopped writing.
Instead I stood outside
in the cold
and screamed at God
while my fingers got numb.
I thought of you,
mocked by your oxygen tank,
forced to breathe from a little yellow cylinder,
and I screamed again
and again
and again.
Wordless, hopeless screams
dissipated in the air
like the breath-steam leaving my mouth,
like the oxygen leaving your tank,
like the tears leaving the eyes
of everyone who ever loved you,
and I didn't have to wonder
what it's like
when a great man dies.