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Inhumation

This poem, my 2nd hybridanelle, reflects on what it was like for me to be “inhumed” at the Camarillo State Hospital between 13 and 14. There I spent a year on the children’s unit, a locked ward with cinder block walls and heavily grated windows.

The title is meant to convey the sense of being killed in spirit, mind, and soul as well as the sense of being entombed (inhumed), alive only physically. I also wanted it to hint at the sense of being dehumanized (inhume—inhuman—dehumanize—inhumation), though this is not a denotive definition for the word. The scheme of indentation is meant to mimic the way a column of bricks is organized in a cinder block wall.

Inhumation

locked wards cower in the distant gloom;
grated windows pattern all my dreams;
heavy haze distorts my heavy mood.

        my eyes are weary of watching faded lights;
        i wait throughout the dismal night to hear
        the call of a rooster just beyond my sight.

                silence is an ever-present drone;
                tempered springs betray my slightest move;
                grated windows pattern all my dreams.

these cinderblocks enfold my spirit in lime;
interred in tomblike walls of concrete halls,
my eyes are weary of watching faded lights.

        thoughts amid this broken darkness brood;
        restless motions lurk within the shade;
        tempered springs betray my slightest move.

                this is the crypt where my rotting soul is set,
                thus laid to rest beyond that twilight hail,
                the call of a rooster just beyond my sight.

time is fractured into mental shards,
strewn against the darkness of my view;
restless motions lurk within the shade.

        and the images betray my heart with lies
        that flash against my mind as crumbled hopes;
        my eyes are weary of watching faded lights.

                here i watch them phase in empty hues,
                omens of a future laid in brick
                strewn against the darkness of my view.

this lucid static is comfort of a sort
that’s lost with every sunrise when i hear
the call of a rooster just beyond my sight.

        black within the slowly rising brume,
        locked wards cower in the distant gloom,
        omens of a future laid in brick;
        heavy haze distorts my heavy mood.

                i dread the sound that will end another night,
                a sound that seals my fate within this hell—
                my eyes are weary of watching faded lights—
                the call of a rooster just beyond my sight.

Publication History:

The Awakenings Review — Summer 2007

Posted on by EAT

A Christmas Poem

I spent Christmas Eve alone this year. A month ago I was direct witness to a tragic, ringing loss that had eerie parallels to my own father’s suicide when I was ten. This makes it difficult not to feel pensive, reflective, and melancholy.

A Christmas Poem

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

Publication History:

The Awakenings Review — Summer 2007

Posted on by EAT

To the Parent Who Committed Suicide

As scary and abusive as my father was, I still think I eventually would have found a way to reconcile with him in adulthood, had he not killed himself when I was ten. Though I’m not the most successful of individuals financially, I still think he would have been proud of who I became as a person. Somehow I’m certain of this.

Like many who claw their way forth from disadvantaged backgrounds, I often felt the urge and impulse to throw it all away to drugs, thievery—and much worse—as a way of dealing with feelings of impotence and inadequacy, as a way of lashing out at myself and the world. But instead I somehow chose to self-cultivate, slowly but surely, over time. A never ending process of ever evolving fruition.

If I were my child, I would be proud of him, knowing the impossibility of what he had to overcome both internally and circumstantially. And so sometimes I wish I could show myself to the father who left my world, who left life when I was ten, and enjoy even just a moment of his acknowledgment, his praise. The proud father of a survivor who learned to thrive in his own way.

I wrote this poem, my 19th villanelle, as I pondered what my father has missed out on. I know that he would have wanted to be here for this, to see me find my way. So as much as I lost him when he died, it seems like he lost me even more. I think this is the way with the suicide of a parent—The parent misses out on everything. The child adapts and ultimately finds his or her way, but the parent misses out on absolutely everything. It is the ultimate loss.

To the Parent Who Committed Suicide

You’ll never know what they will come to be,
The children of your heart who live without your love;
At best, you leave behind but stings of grief.

You’ll never share their triumph or defeat
And smile when again they rise with new resolve;
You’ll never know what they will come to be.

You’ll never comfort them in times of need
Or feel the subtle joy that always comes thereof;
At best, you leave behind but stings of grief.

You’ll never see them strive to meet their dreams,
The hopes within their soul they struggle to achieve;
You’ll never know what they will come to be.

You’ll never beam a parent’s prideful glee,
To see them find their way and how they learn to live;
At best, you leave behind but stings of grief.

You lost them as you swung your failing feet,
And now you’re just a void that they will always have;
You’ll never know what they will come to be;
At best, you leave behind but stings of grief.

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Pestilence

Faith and conviction are powerful forces of human nature. They can work to heal and sustain an individual in the face of terrible trauma and adversity. But there is a dark side to this force. In the hands of dogmatists faith and conviction become a pestilence, rained down upon those who do not share their beliefs or who cannot adhere to their ideals.

There was a man who committed suicide. He was deeply religious and he strove with all his might to be what he was told was a good Christian. But when his personal writings were found after his death, it was discovered that he was homosexual. Outwardly there was no way to know. He was married with two children. Inwardly he lived in shame and terror. Shame at being something the dogmatists told him god despised and terror at the thought of spending eternity in hell. Eventually this torment drove him to his end.

I was on the outskirts of this disaster as it unfolded, listening, observing. Eventually I found myself overcome with rage at those who sent him to his death, and so I wrote to them. This, my 19th terzanelle, is written to all those who would use their dogmatic self-righteousness to destroy the hearts, minds, and spirits of others.

Pestilence

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.