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Metzengerstein

I think that I was only nine
When first I met Metzengerstein,
Too young to know his foul intent,
Too young, too pure, too innocent.

He lived in some old ruined church
With gothic columns, vaulted arch,
That sheltered him from thundered skies,
And hid, in gloom, his enterprise.

For from that church were mutterings
On windy nights, such utterings
As screams, while weird unholy moans
Disturbed the graveyard's scattered bones.

He wore a cape that wrapped him in
A hat, broad-brimmed, and black as sin,
His gaiters to the knee were brown
The boots he wore, they made no sound.

At night I'd see his shadow pass
Dark stained, upon my window glass
As stealthily he roamed abroad
While mist and fog obscured the road.

He came from some small German town,
My kindly father asked him round:
'We must be kind, and make no fuss,
But treat him just as one of us.'

Metzengerstein then came to call
And sat and stared - stared at us all,
My mother brought us cake and tea
And laughed, and smiled most happily.

She was so sweet, so fair of face
My father said: 'She lends us grace.'
She was much younger, then, than he,
He'd brought her from the old country.

But while she played the welcome host
Metzengerstein watched her the most,
His eyes burned fierce beneath thick brows
As once he'd spied on German fraus.

He came again, again and he
Ignored my father, ignored me,
But watched my mother's every move;
She danced, to see if he'd approve.

My father sat bemused and still,
And worried too, for I could tell;
His wife would seem to be bewitched,
Metzengerstein had scratched her itch.

So soon that sweet and dainty dame
Had added rumour to her name,
She raised her skirts above the knee,
Wore tops as low as low could be.

While in our parlour, came the sounds
Of dancing music, all year round,
Metzengerstein sat in his chair
While she would dance, and taunt, and stare…

Right back at him, full in the eyes
As if he had her hypnotized;
'I wish I'd never asked him here, '
My father muttered, in despair.

Then one day when I was but ten
My mother, with Metzengerstein
Went out, and said: 'We're going to search,
The bowels of that ruined church.'

He'd told her there was music there
Would charm the roots of her fair hair,
Would spin her giddy in the dark
Would faery-like, ignite her spark.

I waited 'til my father came
And told him I was not to blame:
'But mother's gone, some stairs to climb,
She's gone with that Metzengerstein! '

We waited, and we waited on,
But of the two there was no sign,
At length we sought the church in pain
But all was echoes in the rain.

For days and weeks, and then for years
I watched my father burst in tears
Whenever tunes, they did remind him
Of his wife… Metzengerstein!

And lonely then became his life,
He mourned his only love, his wife,
But she had disappeared, as if
Her dainty frame did not exist.

This year, as autumn winds were due
I found that I was fifty-two,
When down the road I saw a sign -
My mother, and Metzengerstein! .

She danced on in, and said: 'We're back!
We found no music in the rack.'
I looked and stared like one deranged -
For neither of the two had aged!

My father, crippled in his chair
Cried out: 'Oh God! Is that my dear? '
And she shrank back to see him now,
This pale old man, his feeble brow.

'I have been but an hour or so;
What's wrong? Where did my husband go? '
I looked at her through childhood tears:
'You have been gone for forty years! '

She swooned, fell swiftly to the floor
As I peered out the open door,
But of that cape there was no sign,
He'd gone for good - Metzengerstein!

19 April 2008

poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Prisoner Of War

he waited from night to night
he waited till the son started peeling over the horizon
he waited till he heard the morning birds chirp
he waited for a long time
he waited for his father
his father lost at war
his father he knew since he was born
but as time grew
the boy felt so weary
the boy waited and waited and waited
his mother giving him the same face
the same face when his father left
and the same face when he didn't comeback
but the boy did not notice this
the boy never knew his dad has been lost
but until
until he strayed up one night
a night he would never forget
he saw his father walking about in the streets
his uniform on but he noticed something else
his father had many medals
but he knew nothing of them
all that he cared about was his father was home

the boy waited 10 years
his mother fell asleep in tears
for all those years
but then he finally came home

this poem is dedicated to all POW

poem by Montana Hohensee
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Random things about my Mother

My mother whose eyes were strained
By a sadness that stained her eyes
With grey and blue hue

My mother who never blew
Out candles on a birthday cake

My mother who never knew
The thrills of flying in an airplane

My mother who forever threw
Her pearls to swine

My mother who knew
No contentment in living

My who mother never lived
To be even seventy two

My mother who it is true
Stopped living long before she died

My mother from whose mouth flew
Words of disappointment and fury

My mother whose lips
Tasted bitter tears

My mother sat impatiently
In sorrow through her years

My mother who like Kunta Kinte
Was tamed by Diabets

My mother who was tamed
By my father

My mother who was captured by my father

My mother who fought with my father
The two them struggling false teeth piercing each others flesh

My mother who my father told to go and cook the mint

My mother who would beat us and cause wounds and bruises to our skin

My mother who love to walk about

My mother who gave a toe
A day away

My mother who kiked with her stump of a leg after she lost her foot

My mother who was a great dresser

My mother who could sing
Sang on the church choir

My mother who would be at the front of the church earliest every Saturday
My mother who insisted I be baptized and save by the holy ghost

My mother had beautiful handwriting
My mother who had nine children for five different men

My mother who tried to settle down with my father

My mother who could never swim

My mother who loved to sing

My mother who would tie us up on leashes and take us for long walks through the town

My mother who sought out hand me-downs – for our clothing

My mother who was active in the Welfare Society at church so she could cream the crop for her family

My mother who instigated many a conflicts with her numerous friend was left with only a few in the end.

My mother whom I so wanted to help evolve

My mother who I helped to live

My mother who I had to let die

My mother who lives in me

poem by Fleurette Elaine Harris
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Happy Female Father’s Day

I patiently waited for another year,
For father’s day to come
To wish that special person a happy day
Happy father’s day, to my mom

The father figure, was very rare
Games together were numb
I wonder what a father’s love might be
Happy father’s day, to my mom.

So on this day set aside for dads,
I want to let you know
That you are the one I treasure most,
And to you my love I owe

Thank you for another father’s day,
I longed for this day to come,
Never knowing the love, of a visiting dad
Happy father’s day, to my mom

My mother dear, my mother dear,
You are the best, in every way
So I stand tall and wish for you
A happy female father’s day.

poem by Troy Brown
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Half my father

Half my father
Half my mother
My mother white as a ghost
My father black as coal
In my face the mixture glows
My skin is white
Still I am a black man
By the make of my nose
My hair is curly
My eyes are gray
Within me both if them lives
My mother’s race
Did enslave
My father’s race
Was never paid.
Still within I bare the two
Am O the new American?
My father is white
My mother is Korean
They met during the war
And I was born
Their only son
By my tone of skin
And by my eyes
You can tell
That there is a divide
And by my blonde hair
It is there for you to spy
Am I the new American?
My mother is German
My father polish
I learned three languages
As I grew older
Both of them
Did love me well
And of each country did tell
That I could draw
From each well
Am I the new American?
My father is Chinese
My mother Spanish
Both crossed over the Rio Grand
I am in the make of my father
But I have my mother’s brown skin
Am I the new American?

poem by David E. Patton
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Missing Link

A sickly child lie
frail on the sofa in the living room.
A knock on the door,
His mother opened.
The man who entered the child knew it was his father.
Whose child is this?
“It is your youngest son” his mother said.
The children in the street
all had a father; the child had waited for him.
But his father ignored him,
gave chocolate to his sister and brother,
then he drank from a bottle,
his mother threw him out.
Next day asked his mother, ” are you sure he is my father? ”
She slapped her son’s face and cried.

poem by Oskar Hansen
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Henry and Woman Servicing

You don't want to go
With that kind of woman,
Henry's mother said.
What kind of woman

is that? Henry asked.
The kind that offer
themselves to men
who are not their

husbands, his mother
replied, sitting back
in the soft chair by
the fireplace, joining

her fingers, forming
what she used to call
her church. Henry watched
her church form of finger

forming, his eyes sliding
over his mother's dyed
hair, the grey streaks,
the nose, the thin red

painted lips. But isn't
that kind of women
providing a service?
Henry asked, walking

to the window, watching
his father mowing the
lawn, sweat on the brow,
the eyes dead looking.

Service? His mother said,
her tone icy, Service?
She repeated, that's not
service, Henry that's sin.

S.I.N. Henry raised his
eyebrows, there was in
the pocket of his pants,
a pack of fives, unused

as yet. Oh, Henry said,
Duncan Smold had this
woman in the back of
his car, he called it hard

smooching or some such
word. Henry's mother
eyed him closely, her eyes
narrowing. Then he sinned,

Henry, he sinned, she said,
pushing a hand through
her hair, her features going
red. Oh, right, Henry said,

I'll tell Duncan next time
he's in his car with some
woman in the back, that
he's sinning, Henry turned

away, he didn't want his
mother to see him grinning.

poem by Terry Collett
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How Mother Looked

You want to look how Mother looked.
Makeup she used to use lies on her
Dressing table in the room father has
Had locked up. You have secreted the
Key and unlocked and closing the door,
Are sitting facing your image in the mirror’s
Glass you’ve propped against a chair. You
Do not have your mother’s hair. You have
Her eyes, Father said, although he says it
Less now since her death, as if stealing
From the dead. You want to transform
Yourself into her; be the woman she was;
Have her beauty; have her smile; her gentle
Manner. Cancer took her like thief at night;
Reduced her to a bag of bones and hanging
Skin, pale and thin. Forget that image, Father
Chides, cast it away, lock behind the mind’s
Dark doors. You want to look how Mother
Looked before her sad demise, before cold
Cancer’s deceit and lies. Still a child, Father
Says, you have all your life to live; leave your
Grief behind, but you want to be as Mother
Was, like the coloured picture in your mind.

poem by Terry Collett
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Father Of Night

Father of night, father of day,
Father, who taketh the darkness away,
Father, who teacheth the bird to fly,
Builder of rainbows up in the sky,
Father of loneliness and pain,
Father of love and father of rain.
Father of day, father of night,
Father of black, father of white,
Father, who build the mountain so high,
Who shapeth the cloud up in the sky,
Father of time, father of dreams,
Father, who turneth the rivers and streams.
Father of grain, father of wheat,
Father of cold and father of heat,
Father of air and father of trees,
Who dwells in our hearts and our memories,
Father of minutes, father of days,
Father of whom we most solemnly praise.

song performed by by Bob Dylan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My Parents

Oh my mother Oh my father
Oh my mother Oh my father
Where are you where are you wher are you?
Ilove you i love you

I looking for you
to talk about my heart
which still ill
untill i will see you

Oh my mother Oh my father
Oh my mother Oh my father
Where are you where are you wher are you?
I love you i love you

You are the third one
In my small heart
After ALLAH and
And my prophet MOHAMED

Oh my mother Oh my father
Oh my mother Oh my father
Where are you where are you wher are you?
I love you i love you

Oh ALLAH is ordering us
Not to make them angry
Never to tell them
the smallest word ouufff

Oh my mother Oh my father
Oh my mother Oh my father
Where are you where are you wher are you?
I love you i love you

Oh ALLAH loves who
Makes his parents happy
And forgives those
Who have a lot of mistakes

Oh my mother Oh my father
Oh my mother Oh my father
Where are you where are you wher are you?
Ilove you i love you

Oh ALLAH enter me
To the higher Firdaous
With my parents and
every single MUSLIM

Oh my mother Oh my father
Oh my mother Oh my father
Where are you where are you wher are you?
I love you i love you

poem by Abderaouf Laoud
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Oh, FATHER! - FEEL MY Untold LOVE! (Part-1)

At schooltime, my father left me at house gringo!
Yet I Kept my tender heart at home of lingo!
When I quested, for fate “he is right as rain.”
Tender tears exploded like MISSILES yet in vein;
Mother, oh mother, I am still your little son!
Father, Oh father, I love thee till I am done!

While I missed mother’s love and father’s stories
All the night I stood without sleep with many worries
I asked the god, why two legs and hands!
Why not two bodies and two souls for errands!
Mother, oh mother, I am still your little son!
Father, Oh father, I love thee till I am done!

Sugarcane Juice, peanuts and berries!
Our green fields, summer holidays and holy tours!
When thousand memories flashes in mind, now,
How much I miss mom's care! How much I miss dad’s love!
Mother, oh mother, I am still your little son!
Father, Oh father, I love thee till I am done!

The small buns you bought for me still smell good,
The grapes brought, coming from city is still my favorite food;
The fruits you brought me with roots; are they heaven sent?
Yet I didn’t pay any rent pay as you are my parent!
Mother, oh mother, I am still your little son!
Father, Oh father, I love thee till I am done!

Do you know who my MAHATMA is? Oh, my brother!
He is not Mandela, nor Gandhi but my father
Who taught me A to Z rather?
What to do and what not to do, I gather!
Mother, oh mother, I am still your little son!
Father, Oh father, I love thee till I am done!

When I think of all the things you gave to me:
Your sacrifices in food; love and affection are some to name,
............................................. ................................................. .....
*A big NOTICE BOARD: Oops! Sorry the poem is NOT completed. This is just break time! Now continue Your reading in part 2 the poem.

Oh, FATHER! - FEEL MY Untold LOVE! (Part-2) contin'd in part 2.. Read it.

poem by Harindhar Reddy
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Dark Skies

Never trust dark skies,
Mother says, sitting next
To you in her wheelchair
Aged and infirm, her mind
Shot through with senility;
And you remember her telling
You, that as a young girl, she
Would walk with her mother
And younger siblings, to take
Her father’s Sunday roast dinner,
Hidden in the compartment of
The pram beneath her two baby
Sisters, to the work place where
He waited, and her mother saying,
Make sure the others do not make
Off Etty, and your mother as she
Was then, with her big blue eyes
And long curly hair, having that look
About her, as if she could see her
Father’s death in 1936, and him no
Longer waiting, no longer waiting for
Them all patiently and hungrily there.

poem by Terry Collett
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Cliff House

When the sun has set in the wintertime
And I'm all alone in this grey old house,
I bolt the shutters and pull the blinds
And set a spark to the candlewax;
The wind runs howling about the eaves,
The shutters chatter, the wind-cock spins,
The breakers clatter and clash below
As my world returns to me, widdershins.

It's then that I hear my mother's voice
So faint at first in the storm outside,
She sighs and moans, and I hear her plead
The length and breadth of the countryside.
Her voice soughs out from the aspens near,
Quivers in ferns and rocks, as if
No year that followed has spent her need
For still she sobs at the edge of the cliff.

Her voice comes whispering under the door
I plug my ears and I cry out loud:
'Leave me, mother, you worked your will,
You earned your fee of a graveyard shroud! '
Still she mutters and moans for him
The shape that darkened our outer door,
Whenever my father was not around
I'd hear his steps on the oaken floor.

Then I'd be sent to my lonely room
And told to play as she locked me in,
Her eyes were bright and her tone was gay
As she breathless, left for her wayward sin.
I heard them laugh in the room above,
The steady beat as they rocked the bed,
And then he'd bellow, and she would scream
As I pulled the covers right over my head.

On winter nights she would pace the floor,
Impatient then, and she'd peer outside,
Men with torches were on the beach
And I'd hear them curse at the rising tide.
But then I'd peek through my window shades
To see them marching up over the hill,
Carrying barrels and flagons of wine
To the village, seen from my window-sill.

She caught me once and she screamed in fright,
'You never, never must look, you see!
Those men are phantoms, they're only ghosts
From wrecks aground on the outer key.'
Then later came the knock at the door,
I saw the shadow, the wide brimmed hat,
And as she turned the key in the lock,
I heard her whisper, and sigh: 'Oh Jack! '

I asked her once who the stranger was
Who came so late, it was awful queer,
'It's always dark when he comes to call,
He never comes when my father's here.'
My mother grimaced, and turned quite pale
Then said, 'he brings us our victuals, son,
Tea and coffee, sugar and salt,
And a bushel of wheat and barleycorn.'

One day, a team of Revenue Men
Were waiting there in the cove below,
A gale was blowing, the breakers crashed,
I woke when the early rooster crowed.
Then lights and men in a mad melee
And a gun went off and a scream of pain,
I watched as they marched them over the hill,
A line of phantoms encased in chain.

My mother ran from the open door,
Out to the windswept cliff she fled,
I heard her moan as she looked on down
At the figure that lay on the beach, stone dead.
My father followed her, looking grim
As he stood behind in the driving rain,
But mother fell to her knees, and wailed
Like a banshee whirled in a pit of pain.

I left the window, I crossed the room,
I took the stairs at a run that day,
The door lay open to morning gloom
I raced on out in the pouring rain.
But over toward the edge of the cliff
I could see my father, looking down,
Mother lay on the beach below, while
All my father could do was frown.

I'll never know if she jumped that day
To join the shape that lay dead on the beach,
Or whether my father pushed her there,
A love long dead, that was out of reach.
He cried no tears, that I recall
When they buried them both in a hillside grave,
But followed them after a year and a day,
Slashed his throat in the old church nave.

Years have gone, and I prowl the house,
Perched on the edge of this dreadful cliff,
I dare not leave, for my mother's cries
Blow in and out from the storm swept reef.
But late on wintry nights the sound
Of those heavy steps on the oaken floor,
A shadow passes my room at night
And my mother sighs, and I hear no more.

poem by David Lewis Paget
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No Martyrs in Nigeria

To my grandmother,
She is late
And waiting at Heaven's gate
When you get there mother
Tell this to my father
He was there before you mother
Let Him talk to my father for my sake
I mean the father's father
The Almighty father who
Brought us here
Let Him take us there
Me and my comrades
I mean the one's He made
The one's He shouldn't forsake
For sinners we are
But His love and mercy keeps us alive
I mean His son;
The one who died for us
On calvary
Tell Him to come to our aid again
Ask Him when is the second coming taking place
Tell Him we have waited too long
Tell Him to come tomorrow
Before the human race extinct of sorrow.
When He decides to come,
Tell Him to come to Nigeria first
Tell Him there are no more martyrs
In this country
The thousand and one Churches
Have been corrupted
Pastors now rule the billboards
Pastors now own empires of business
Pastors now own private jets
And cares not for the sufferings
Of the poor and needy
Christ had nothing
But he fed thousands
They had forgotten the scripture
Young girls and spinsters
Now go to Church half naked
Tell Him grandmother also
That this poem is not finished.

poem by Efe Benjamin
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I'm My Own Grandpa

It was many many years ago when I was twenty-three,
I was married to a widow, she's as pretty as can be.
This widow had a grown-up daughter who had hair of red,
my father fell in lover with her, and soon these two were wed.

I'm my own grandpa, I'm my own grandpa.
It sounds silly, I know, but it really is so, oh
I'm my own grandpa.

This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life:
My daughter was my mother 'cause she was my father's wife.
And then to complicate the matter, though it brought me joy,
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy.

This bouncing baby then became a brother-in-law to dad,
and so became my uncle, though it made me very sad,
for if he was my uncle then he also was the brother
of the widow's grown-up daughter, who, of course, was my step-mother.

I'm my own grandpa, I'm my own grandpa.
It sounds silly, I know, but it really is so, oh
I'm my own grandpa.

Father's wife then had a son who kept them on the run.
And he became my grandchild, for he was my daughter's son.
My wife is now my mother's mother, and it makes me blue,
because although she is my wife, she's my grandmother, too.

Now if my wife is my grandmother, then I am her grandchild.
And every time I think of it, it nearly drives me wild.
For now I have become the strangest case you ever saw.
Husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa.

I'm my own grandpa, I'm my own grandpa.
It sounds silly, I know, but it really is so, oh
I'm my own grandpa.

poem by Sheldon Allan Silverstein
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The Tale Of The Trucker's Life

The young bride sits alone in her house,
waiting for her farm hand husband to return to her lonely bosom.
Enters the husband, tired, and cranky.
He goes to the stereo, hooks up his headphones,
and falls asleep listening to country, and western music.
The bride long since gone to bed alone.
The young mother, and her toddler son
in front of the TV watching movies while the
husband/father works third shift at Wal-Mart 25 miles away.
The mother takes her son to his baseball games,
explains why daddy can't come,
because he decided to be a truck driver.
She is mother, father, and sole teacher to there young son.
She wipes away his tears when he is hurt,
Comforts him when he is sick,
and makes excuses for the absent father
who never has acted like he loved their child.
Who wipes away the tears that the
mother/wife sheds every time she sees
how much their son misses his daddy.
Their little boy puts his arm around his
mother's shoulders and with a hug,
he says, 'mom it will be all right.'
Does the trucker miss his family?
Does he feel the same pain, and sorrow?
He must not care, for he stays gone sometimes four,
sometimes six weeks in a row,
only coming home long enough to make love.
Never does he interact with his son, not really.
The wife, and son now lay in the cold, hard ground,
never to rise again. Now it is too late
for the old trucker to tell them how he really felt.
He sits alone in an old rocking chair,
staring at old, faded photos of his wife,
and son, but he is not in any of the pictures.
He stands in front of the pearly gates of Heaven,
he sees his wife, and son just on the other side,
But they don't recognize him.
So goes the tale of the trucker's life.

poem by Velmar Pewee Hale Johnson
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Father Spoke in Code

Father spoke in code
Mother understood.
She would cry
once he went to bed.
I never understood the code.
My sister didn't either.
As we got older, we quit
asking Mother what he said.

A feral cat claimed our yard.
It would leap the fence
when anyone appeared.
Except, of course, Father.
When he came out to walk
around the garden after supper,
the cat would sit straight up,
then rub against his leg
and look at him as if it understood
what others never could.

My sister used to say
the two of us were proof
Father and Mother
got together twice.
I told her I wasn't so certain.
I looked a lot like Mr. Brompton,
the next-door neighbor.
He used to buy us sugar cones
from the ice cream truck.

My sister, by the way, didn't look
like anyone in the family either,
but that was 40 years ago
when I last saw her.
I went away to college
and she got married.
We were never close after that.
Not even Christmas cards.

Forty years is a long time.
Now, we plan to get together
for a weekend this summer
before one of us dies.
I suggested we wait
till one of us is terminal.
What's the rush, I said.
But my wife told her
I was only kidding,
that we'll be coming
and not to make a fuss.
Burgers and hot dogs
will do just fine.

I know what Sis and I
will talk about that weekend,
the two people we'll always
have in common, no matter
how many years and miles
may lie between us.
Father and Mother have been
dead for decades now
but they're still alive in us.
I talk in code, my wife says,
and my sister cries a lot,
now that her husband's dead.
The one thing I want to know
is if my sister knows
what happened to the cat.
It knew the code,
may have had some answers.

poem by Donal Mahoney
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Weep Not, My Wanton

WEEP not, my wanton, smile upon my knee:
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
Mother's wag, pretty boy,
Father's sorrow, father's joy.
When thy father first did see
Such a boy by him and me,
He was glad, I was woe:
Fortune changèd made him so,
When he left his pretty boy,
Last his sorrow, first his joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee:
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
Streaming tears that never stint,
Like pearl drops from a flint,
Fell by course from his eyes,
That one another's place supplies:
Thus he grieved in every part,Tears of blood fell from his heart,
When he left his pretty boy,
Father's sorrow, father's joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee:
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
The wanton smiled, father wept;
Mother cried, baby lept;
More he crowed, more we cried;
Nature could not sorrow hide.
He must go, he must kiss
Child and mother, baby bliss;
For he left his pretty boy,
Father's sorrow, father's joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee:
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.

poem by Robert Greene
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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My Stepmother (for Edgar Andrade Baguio)

When my stepmother first came, her eyes were sharp and bright as little
knives. Her youth and my childhood ran into each other - she was the victor.
Although my father was still alive, I felt orphaned, depressed and alone,
crying by myself, grew up alone. In the first year of peace, everyone drifted.
My father went out - returned with gray hair. I have my father to compensate
me for the loss of my childhood. Sometimes vague envy found father sitting
in silent expectation...

A decade goes by. My stepmother is still as beautiful as at first, though older.
She returns to ask my father to forgive her mistake: My half sister has
another half sister. My heart was no longer jealous - I only felt sorry for my
half sister, who was really too young... I hoped she would not find herself
once more on a tipping wagon. My father died, rain poured down in the
courtyard. My tears gleaned some contentment: Mother and father together
now, forever.

After that she aged quickly, solitary, silent as a shadow, her eyes no longer
sharp as knives. When my son entered the world, she was the first to carry
him, she who changed him the first time, placed him in the gently rocking
hammock. My half-sister asked her mother, only half-joking, Will you favor
my first child this way? Lullabies contain no riddles and tears run down
forever. My stepmothers silent eyes smiled brightly when my son threw
himself into her arms: 'Grandma! '

- Thanh Nguyen's narrative poetry

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Depressed Bubble

His eyes twinkled,
When water bowled along,
With a heavy heart full of grief he stood there,
Feeling out of sorts.

Thinking what would happen to his mother,
When she'll know he got a D,
Thinking what would happen to his father,
Knowing his son couldn't reach his expectations.

Hearing his father's footsteps the boy ran away,
How would he face his father,
How would he face his mother,
What would he say to them?

Only this that they shouldn't have expected much from him,
Or rather blame himself?
His father called out his name,
He couldn't bare the pain,
It was the third time his hard work had went in vain,

The boy thought of nothing,
And while the father reached,
He was horrified for he saw blood stains on the floor,
And no sign of his child.

Teardrops wetted his clothes,
And all that he cited was,
Did you came to see me,
Or did you wished me to go with just tears in my eyes and blood on my hands.....

Written on 10/20/10

poem by Ayesha Riaz
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Male parental hierarchy.

My parents are two, grandparents four
And great grandparents, eight and so on.

I am known by my father, his father,
And his father and so on by male side.

My mother, her mother and father, their
Mother and father and so on are ignored.

My fathers’ mother and grandfather’s
Mother and so on go to oblivion.

I am known by my father, his father
And his father and so on as a family.

All women from whom I have drawn
Their genes have been shut out.

Parental hierarchy is represented
By male, women dislodged at every stage.
25.08.2009

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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