Untitled (still a work-in-progress)
You should know I didn't feel anything; watching the mother of my father die, mouth spread apart like mid- yawn... even death must be boring-- coma packed with as much action as the wait. The nurses must have gotten impatient, only expo-residue of the inmate's name remained on the dry-erase; only one light lit, flickering as slow as the insulin drip. I scrapped the last of green jello from the saucer bottom, she didn't mind. What kind of hospital doesn't serve applesauce? No offer of euthanasia. You should know I grabbed for the plug, the plastic tubes of "life" support shoved up both nostrils, one splintered down the throat. But her son smacked away the help, leaving red printed on my right check; looking wild-mad. He's so selfish, waiting and watching, watching waiting watching for flat-line. He rocked front-back, back-front side-to-side; good thing his mother couldn't see this tantrum-- it would kill her. You should know I walked out, asked at the directory for a strait-coat, directions to the nearest loony bin; gave the room number, left without good-bye. You should know I didn't care anything about going (the weather too cold, too much like familial faces back home); to sit for each still-frame hour hours on end in a hard chair, suffocating from pit-stains staining on mothball suits; the thickness of mourning; the funeral home turned botanical garden stocked with roses, daises, tulips: carnations for the one incarnate. No view or last look at red-lipstick, a bobbed wig, pearls, her favorite floral dress-- starring till they say It's time. If the family will now please make their way to the limo. A simple: come watch us bury your dead works. Who wants to feel like royalty, parading down Chatsworth highway, with a coffin bringing up the rear. You should know I didn't attend; those men, slinging dirt all over her-- filling the hole without me. You should know, instead, I asked for pardon, said I'm there in spirit; instead, I wrote elegiac strains for a dead grandmother once called Nonna.
I just love some of these lines. “Even death must be boring,” “like mid-yawn” – what an interesting approach to the inevitability of death. Very different, very good. “One light lit, flickering as slow as the insulin drip.” “What kind of hospital doesn’t serve applesauce?” Fantastic work.
ReplyDeleteLittle nitpicks: “scrapped” should be “scraped.” Careful on overusing those semi-colons. They’re nice, but I see a whole heap of them. I had to read “a simple: come watch us bury your dead works” a few times to understand what it meant, so you might want to try repunctuating or rearranging. Also, there are a few places where I think you ought to let the words speak for themselves: the quotation marks around “life” toward the beginning, and I think the ending is a little too tell-y as well.
Great work, Sydney. I would love to see further revisions of this.
Sydney,
ReplyDeleteThis poem reminds me a lot of Tim's draft insomuch as they both focus heavily on the specific elements of such a difficult situation, elements which frequently get overshadowed by the emotional severity of death. Indeed, the question "what kind of hospital doesn't serve applesauce" is a fine example of a detail you don't usually get in a poem about death. I like, too, the uncomfortable closeness to the personal space of the poet/speaker. You aren't afraid to publicly embrace familial conflict as a subject matter because such sticky places often make the best poems. I think the repetition "you should know" does a lot to reinforce the "confessional" element of this poem. I am left asking, "why should I know?". I wonder if phrases like "loony bin" aren't a little too hackneyed. There is some real tension in this poem... a kind of static frustration that gives this draft some real power. Maybe try the elimination technique to tame the form a little bit? Bravo.
From the very beginning, I'm noticing a lot of punctuation. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the punctuation you chose is unusual (semicolons, dashes, etc.), and that brings some (probably) unwanted attention to it. I actually found myself tripped up by it, wondering how long each pause should be. Should a dash or semicolon pause be longer? And then the ellipsis longer than both...you get the point.
ReplyDeleteThe phrase "coma packed with as much action as the wait" is confusing to me. Whose wait? The grandmother's wait to die? The son's wait for mourning? The narrator's wait to leave?
In the middle, you write "good thing his mother couldn't see this tantrum--it would kill her." But isn't that what the narrator wants? Maybe you could change it to "too bad his mother couldn't see..." which would fit with the overall tone of the piece.
I agree with Murph about choosing to write about this subject. It's difficult, but I think you've done a good job so far!