Race_9togo
Race_9togo
Jan 04, 2012

What Have I Lost?

I finally told him,
sitting in
inevitable bar,
noisome with the
ever-present stinks
of spilled beer
and cigarettes,
the stale musky scent
of listless dancing women
thick upon the air.

He sneered at me,
eyes vacant,
mind stained black
by decades
of drink and hate
and said
“You can use her,
you can fuck her,
hell, you can
even love her,
but don’t you ever
bring that nigger
to my home.”

A decade down
the shining path
I chose to take
my life along
my father passed away:
he died alone,
afraid,
regretful,
as befits
one of his kind.

The vultures
of his family
all asked me
to attend his
wake and funeral
then pay for it as well;
I answered:
never speak to me again.

Two decades and a half
from that divergence,
only memory is left,
my hate and bitterness
all burned away
by deep abiding love;

I think about
my children and the woman
who bore them of her body
sleeping softly
beside me now,
I look down at her
and ask myself
what have I lost?

Nothing.
Nothing at all.

About This Poem

Last Few Words: Well, I'm back. Found a tiny little misstep in this, so I fixed it. Hope you enjoy. New members, if you read this...it is the product of leaving my ego at the virtual door, and doing what the many fine poets here told me to do...I am a product of this site.

Style/Type: Free verse

Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back

Editing Stage: Editing - polished draft

About the Author

Region, Country: Earth Vicinity (within a five light-year radius), ZZC

Favorite Poets: John Donne

This user supports Neopoet so it can be free to all

More from this author

Comments

wesley snow

This is superb and ends marvelously. Also, it does my heart good to see a poet use "noisome" correctly. Way to go.
wesley

China Blue

beautiful

May I make a small suggestion instead of the word stink( although you may prefer that) what if you used stench

A plethora of emotions are rolled into one poem

Race_9togo

Welcome back, you were missed.
I originally had "stench" instead of "stinks", but I changed it, because "stench" denotes a horrible, sort of charnel ordor, to me, while "stink" carries the connotation of sharpness and intensity, without rot and decay.
Thanks!

Roscoe Lane

I agree with Chrys, stench does sound best. But it doesn' stop this being a poem of great worth. Stunning even. Regards Roscoe...

Race_9togo

for your enjoyment and criticism.
I don't like the word "stench" for the reason I gave in replying to Chrys. But I also happen to enjoy those smells in a nudie bar, or at least, I did when I was young.

S

I can really identify with the choice to abandon a toxic relative. I have only one suggestion that might smooth the reading a bit :
Adecade now
down the shining path
I chose
to take my life along

but powerful in the emotions displayed as is..........stan

Race_9togo

Thanks man. Turning from a toxic relative is very hard, even in this circumstance. Difficult, but neccessary.
My original had "now", but I took it out when I realized that it was the last part that needed the immediacy.

Candlewitch

This piece touched me profoundly! I can relate to it in a similar way. I won't go into it here, to spoil the effects of your fantastic poem. You've lost nothing by making the right choices of your life. I LOVE THIS POEM! Only you could have done the story justice.

I have no suggestions as I think it is perfect.
always, Cat

Eumolpus

obviously a moving work, a successful work, very hard felt, and accessible to any reader. I'll try to detach from the emotional presence of the poem, a few comments.

I like the simple mention of cigarette smell in the first stanza, as it dates it to that time decades ago, One image can create a whole scene from an image.
In the second stanza pounces because it uses the taboo N word as it was/is used today, among certain people. Its so rare to see it, everyone's so fucking sensitive about it...but it part of culture,
and should be used as used here, to expose the vulgarity of the user.
In the next stanza I don't think the redundancy is needed "passed away" then "died alone"
Following I don't know why his family members were vultures, what that means exactly. were they fighting over any spoils he might have left? Would not a son normally be expected by family members to cover funeral costs? Unless they were aware of the uncompromising distance between you...But the poem is about your father, I'm not sure we even need that stanza. The poem works very well without it the same.
For a moment in the next stanza I sense you have found some reconciliation as hurt and bitterness have turned to love...for an instant I thought that was towards your father. I might
say "love of her" or something to not even tempt the reader down that track.
I love the last stanza, and end, love it. Just question the word "of" her body, as opposed to "from".
I do know more than a few people who have had disastrous unreconsilable relationships with a parent...my wife and her mother, for starters. I'm glad for you that you have survived it, and can finally detach from the past.

Race_9togo

Hey Hi thanks for your criticism. I must be fast, I am at work!
Cigarette smell. Funny, but it's the stink of naked dancing women, that has the same effect, for me!
"Vultures"....all of those things you thought of, can be applied. That was my intention, to make the reader think of the reasons. Poetry should lead the reader into paths of emotion and thought implied by word and cadence, where possible.
"Of her body"..."from her body" is on the original paper draft. I do not use it because it implies that we are separate entities, that I am taking something from her, and that we are not the parts of One that we really are.
"Deep abiding love"...it is the love that is important, not who it is for, but I think who it is for becomes clear. The reconciliation that is implied is in reality only the scar tissue healed over the wound to the point that it and its pain are irrelevant.
Thank you again, Eumoplus. You have made me think, and appreciate, this true thing that I wrote so long ago.