The doctor said to my father, “You asked me
to tell you when nothing more could be done.
That’s what I’m telling you now.” My father
sat quite still, as he always did,
especially not moving his eyes. I had thought
he would rave if he understood he would die,
wave his arms and cry out. He sat up,
thin, and clean, in his clean gown,
like a holy man. The doctor said,
“There are things we can do which might give you time,
but we cannot cure you.” My father said,
“Thank you.” And he sat, motionless, alone,
with the dignity of a foreign leader.
I sat beside him. This was my father.
He had known he was mortal. I had feared they would have to
tie him down. I had not remembered
he had always held still and kept quiet to bear things,
the liquor a way to keep still. I had not
known him. My father had dignity. At the
end of his life his life began
to wake in me.
Category: Poetry
“Deer Season” by Barbara Tanner Angell
My sister and her friend, Johnny Morley,
used to go on Saturdays to the Bancroft Hotel
to visit his grandfather.
One autumn, the beginning of deer season,
the old man told them,
“Used to hunt when I was a boy,
woods all around here then,
but I never went again after that time…
the men went out, took me with them,
and I shot my first buck.
It was wounded, lying in the leaves,
so they told me,
take the pistol, shoot it in the head.
I went straight up to it,
looked right into its eyes.
Just before I pulled the trigger,
it licked my hand.”
“Deer Season” by Barbara Tanner Angell from The Long Turn Toward the Light: Collected Poems © Cleveland State University Poetry Center.
“the hookers, the madmen and the doomed” by Charles Bukowski
today at the track
2 or 3 days after
the death of the
jock
came this voice
over the speaker
asking us all to stand
and observe
a few moments
of silence. well,
that’s a tired
formula and
I don’t like it
but I do like
silence. so we
all stood: the
hookers and the
madmen and the
doomed. I was
set to be dis-
pleased but then
I looked up at the
TV screen
and there
standing silently
in the paddock
waiting to mount
up
stood the other jocks
along with
the officials and
the trainers:
quiet and thinking
of death and the
one gone,
they stood
in a semi-circle
the brave little
men in boots and
silks,
the legions of death
appeared and
vanished, the sun
blinked once
I thought of love
with its head ripped
off
still trying to
sing and
then the announcer
said, thank you
and we all went on about
our business.
“To Be a Danger” by C.G. Hanzlicek
Just once I’d like to be a danger
To something in this world,
Be hunted by cops
And forced into hiding in the mountains,
Since if they left me on the streets
I’d turn the country around,
Changing everyone’s mind with a word.
But I’ve lived so long a quiet life,
In a world I’ve made small,
That even my own mind changes slowly.
I’m a danger only to myself,
Like the daydreaming night watchman
Smoking his cigar
Near the dynamite shed.
“Divorced Fathers and Pizza Crusts” by Mark Halliday
The connection between divorced fathers and pizza crusts
is understandable. The divorced father does not cook
confidently. He wants his kid to enjoy dinner.
The entire weekend is supposed to be fun. Kids love
pizza. For some reason involving soft warmth and malleability
kids approve of melted cheese on pizza
years before they will tolerate cheese in other situations.
So the divorced father takes the kid and the kid’s friend
out for pizza. The kids eat much faster than the dad.
Before the dad has finished his second slice,
the kids are playing a video game or being Ace Ventura
or blowing spitballs through straws, making this hail
that can’t quite be cleaned up. There are four slices left
and the divorced father doesn’t want them wasted,
there has been enough waste already; he sits there
in his windbreaker finishing the pizza. It’s good
except the crust is actually not so great—
after the second slice the crust is basically a chore—
so you leave it. You move on the next loaded slice.
Finally there you are amid rims of crust.
All this is understandable. There’s no dark conspiracy.
Meanwhile the kids are having a pretty good time
which is the whole point. So the entire evening makes
clear sense. Now the divorced father gathers
the sauce-stained napkins for the trash and dumps them
and dumps the rims of crust which are not
corpses on a battlefield. Understandability
fills the pizza shop so thoroughly there’s no room
for anything else. Now he’s at the door summoning the kids
and they follow, of course they do, he’s a dad.
Words ... for the Time Being 