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Unfixable
My father’s fine German camera closed up
Slim like a metal book, and popped open
With a lens sheath of accordioned leather.
Fascinated by its secret works,
I toyed and played with it, unscrewing this and that,
Until at last I had broken it all for good.
I hid it under the bed in a shoebox,
And he never mentioned it to me again,
Nor I to him.
And so it was for decades, that we talked
On weather, jobs, price of gasoline,
But never secret shames, heart yearnings,
Pentinence, exaltations; no undertow
To that smooth sea.
My father had a secret place in his head
Where the vessels had run thinner, turned by time
And one day they let go his vital blood so that
it crushed the pale pink flesh of his mind
instead of nourishing it.
In the cool quiet hospital room
I watched them forcing the air into his lungs
And it took so much effort for me to go to him
While my mother and her friend watched,
Murmuring what words tumbled out of me
As he lay without response,
But our last words had been spoken three weeks ago.
Nothing else between us at last,
No eye contact, no sudden truth,
As I tried to take his one working hand
While he kept reaching, reaching, reaching
For the breathing tube in his throat.
Slim like a metal book, and popped open
With a lens sheath of accordioned leather.
Fascinated by its secret works,
I toyed and played with it, unscrewing this and that,
Until at last I had broken it all for good.
I hid it under the bed in a shoebox,
And he never mentioned it to me again,
Nor I to him.
And so it was for decades, that we talked
On weather, jobs, price of gasoline,
But never secret shames, heart yearnings,
Pentinence, exaltations; no undertow
To that smooth sea.
My father had a secret place in his head
Where the vessels had run thinner, turned by time
And one day they let go his vital blood so that
it crushed the pale pink flesh of his mind
instead of nourishing it.
In the cool quiet hospital room
I watched them forcing the air into his lungs
And it took so much effort for me to go to him
While my mother and her friend watched,
Murmuring what words tumbled out of me
As he lay without response,
But our last words had been spoken three weeks ago.
Nothing else between us at last,
No eye contact, no sudden truth,
As I tried to take his one working hand
While he kept reaching, reaching, reaching
For the breathing tube in his throat.
Very nice:
I'm having a little trouble connecting the two themes, though. The whole "unfixable" motif works well from beginning to end--though maybe "secret" in the first stanza could be applied to the place under the bed where the narrator hides the broken camera so we'd have a "secret place" there and in the third stanza. But I don't quite see how it ties in with the "never talking about anything but surface issues" part of the poem. Maybe if the father survived the stroke more or less intact and the two never talked about it? Right now, it works, but it doesn't really snap and crackle for me.
I'll offer two nitpicks. "Pentinence" doesn't seem to be a word--"penitence," I'd guess it's supposed to be. And it seems to me the last lines of the first stanza would be stronger if the subjects were reversed:
And I never mentioned it to him again,
Nor he to me.
Mike
I'm having a little trouble connecting the two themes, though. The whole "unfixable" motif works well from beginning to end--though maybe "secret" in the first stanza could be applied to the place under the bed where the narrator hides the broken camera so we'd have a "secret place" there and in the third stanza. But I don't quite see how it ties in with the "never talking about anything but surface issues" part of the poem. Maybe if the father survived the stroke more or less intact and the two never talked about it? Right now, it works, but it doesn't really snap and crackle for me.
I'll offer two nitpicks. "Pentinence" doesn't seem to be a word--"penitence," I'd guess it's supposed to be. And it seems to me the last lines of the first stanza would be stronger if the subjects were reversed:
And I never mentioned it to him again,
Nor he to me.
Mike
This poem is filled with wonderful imagery, and the structure seems more tuned to having a complete thought take three or four lines with the divisions between each favoring punchy phrasings. The language here is great.
If I take each stanza separately, they provide a nice crystallized moment, but where I get lost is in trying to connect the dots between them. Sometimes poetry will invite the reader to make their own suppositions, but as this is a very personal account, I think the author already had a clear idea of how they were supposed to be connected. The first stanza is about choosing not to communicate, and the last is about an inability to do so. Related, yes, but I'm on the edge of knowing whether the poem was making a point about those quasi-related things.
There was this theme about communication and secrets, but the one stanza that stands out to me is the penultimate one, because while there is a secret there, it's not really a case of someone withholding information or not being able to state it. Maybe his body withholding the information, and I understand how this stanza is necessary from a plot standpoint, but maybe some more overt metaphor calling it a failure of communication would have helped unify it all.
Still, lovely atmospheric piece. For the second poetry round in a row, all the entries were done well, and it's a shame someone has to be called last place in a good field.
If I take each stanza separately, they provide a nice crystallized moment, but where I get lost is in trying to connect the dots between them. Sometimes poetry will invite the reader to make their own suppositions, but as this is a very personal account, I think the author already had a clear idea of how they were supposed to be connected. The first stanza is about choosing not to communicate, and the last is about an inability to do so. Related, yes, but I'm on the edge of knowing whether the poem was making a point about those quasi-related things.
There was this theme about communication and secrets, but the one stanza that stands out to me is the penultimate one, because while there is a secret there, it's not really a case of someone withholding information or not being able to state it. Maybe his body withholding the information, and I understand how this stanza is necessary from a plot standpoint, but maybe some more overt metaphor calling it a failure of communication would have helped unify it all.
Still, lovely atmospheric piece. For the second poetry round in a row, all the entries were done well, and it's a shame someone has to be called last place in a good field.