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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
She Sinful Or Wild
All or nothing at all
her father had said
and it seemed right
until she met Harpoon
and he seemed her
Mr Right the one she
had been waiting for
the one she'd dreamed
about but then it all
went wrong and he
became Mr Wrong
and oh yes that was
the downfall that was
the way to her deep
depression and that
episode in the bath
when she tried to
drown herself as her
mother had before her
and she discovered her
as a child coming home
from school and the
door was ajar and when
she went in there was
her mother with her
wrists slit and blood
and her mother drowned
and dead and now sitting
there in her mother's
chair her father some
place her husband poking
some other and all or
nothing at all seemed all
there was left apart from
the few books on the shelf
the Bill Burroughs her mother
had read and left and that
Bukowski book she'd found
in some second shop and the
battered Bible which her
father had beat her about
the head and backside with
as a child when her father
had been boozing or she
had been sinful or wild.
poem by Terry Collett
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Doors Are Locked
From inside of this room
I shall not exit
I have locked the doors
To the world outside.
It does not matter to me what is happening outside, because
Behind these locked doors
Is the world that I live in,
This land of my dreams that
I have fabricated for myself alone.
I recall my father recently reading me a story-
Of a woman who created a world within her dreams-
There she lived and locked herself
Inside of the doors that
Barred her from all that is real.
My father's hope was that
I would find my way out from
This place he called the land of my delusions.
This place which he calls the land of my delusions has become
My only veracity.
From the inside of this room
I shall not exit-it is here I safely converse with
The voices inside of my mind.
The doors to this room are locked, but
I can still hear my mother weeping, and
I hear my mother cry out from the midst of her tears-
What has become of my only child?
Inside of this room, I have constructed a world.
The doors are locked and
I have shut reality out-
The doors to my room are locked and
I have lost the key.
My mother is still weeping as her one and only
Has lost the key that would open the doors
To the world outside-
My mother is sobbing; the key is lost and alas-
Her only child's sanity has also been lost.
poem by Claudia Krizay
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
On His Father's Side
On his mother’s side
Born in Bethlehem
On his Father’s side
No one before him
On his mother’s side
Growing and learning
On his Father’s side
All knowledge showing
On his mother’s side
Stuck in one location
On his Father’s side
Present in every nation
On his mother’s side
He was hungry
On his Father’s side
The multitudes he did feed
On his mother’s side
At Calvary he died
On his Father’s side
He was the essence of life
On his mother’s side
Buried like other men
On his Father’s side
He rose again
On his mother’s side
Human and weak
On his Father’s side
The God of eternity.
poem by Joses Tirtabudi
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Unseen
something's wrong with mother always cleaning the house
and father complains for she does nothing but sweep and scrub
and dust and wipe and rub,
the floors are shiny and father does not like it
he may slide and the children too
and each may hurt the body, but mother cannot be stopped
and we complain like what father does, but mother does not
really mind, for she has become so hardheaded because father
slaps her and we make her deaf with our grumblings
until then when mother died and father cried and we felt we had all our
lives wasted, but there was one in the family who smiled
someone who thought that mother simply did what she liked best
clean the dirt, mop the floors, get all the spider's cobwebs
someone sees the beauty of mother, she's doing her chores still
but now unseen
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Gathering Mushrooms
As he knelt by the grave of his mother and father
the taste of dill, or tarragon-
he could barely tell one from the other-
filled his mouth. It seemed as if he might smother.
Why should he be stricken
with grief, not for his mother and father,
but a woman slinking from the fur of a sea-otter
In Portland, Maine, or, yes, Portland, Oregon-
he could barely tell one from the other-
and why should he now savour
the tang of her, her little pickled gherkin,
as he knelt by the grave of his mother and father?
*
He looked about. He remembered her palaver
on how both earth and sky would darken-
'You could barely tell one from the other'-
while the Monarch butterflies passed over
in their milkweed-hunger: 'A wing-beat, some reckon,
may trigger off the mother and father
of all storms, striking your Irish Cliffs of Moher
with the force of a hurricane.'
Then: 'Milkweed and Monarch 'invented' each other.'
*
He looked about. Cow's-parsley in a samovar.
He'd mistaken his mother's name, 'Regan, ' for Anger';
as he knelt by the grave of his mother and father
he could barely tell one from the other.
poem by Paul Muldoon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Hands & Knees
You see me walking away
What more could I say than sorry
I failed by all your complaints
You pushed a life change but its not me
And filthy hands lay apon my chest
Lay upon my sin, but I do it for green
And in your mind you are blind
And your back turn so fine
Where were you when I needed you most
So mother so father
Im on my hands and knees
So mother so father
Im scrounging for whats left of me
My self-indulgence to blame
For all of the shame in the family
You dont know what its like
How I feel how I cry
How I hate the way I hate my life
So mother so father Im on my hands and knees
So mother so father
Im scrounging for whats left of me
Pues madre, y padre
Esta vida no quiero vivir
So mother so father
I dont want to live this way
So mother so father
Im scrounging for whats left of me
So mother so father
I dont want to live this way
So mother so father
Im scrounging for whats left of me
song performed by by Unloco
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
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
Vote! | Copy!
Remembering Childhood
by accident you come across
an old picture
you recognize the face of your father
beside your mother
with his gun on the side of his body
as reservist of the army
you look closely
your mother pouts
and she is holding on to her
white skirt
you father's right hand grips
his gun
while the left holds on to
the chair just behind your
mother's neck
there is a baby being held
by your mother
it is sleeping and it looks
like you
your father does not like
you and you know it from the very start
you know how to pretend
till he died
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Love Doesn't End With Death
Love doesn’t end with death, Mother
Said. A few days had gone since Father’s
Demise and you stood in their room
While she sat on her bed and did her hair.
She stopped in mid brush and cried.
I wish it was me, you said, at least then
You’d still have him to love. She looked
Round at you and said, then I’d be grieving
For you. It’s still grief no matter who
Goes or stays, she said. She wiped her
Eyes and brushed her hair once more
Looking at herself in the mirror. We never
Appreciate the time we have with people
Until they’ve gone, she muttered, half to
Herself and half to you. Ordinary days are
Best because they’re more plentiful,
She continued, looking at you through
The mirror’s view. You noticed the first grey
Hairs appearing where she’d brushed last,
Sitting there amongst hairs brunette.
Now she sits unaware of days gone by
Or grief; dementia’s done its work so well
That all is wiped clean from brain and head.
She’s unaware of being alive herself let
Alone Father not being there or being dead.
poem by Terry Collett
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The family tree
I am known by my father
Though equally owned by mother.
I trace from my father’s father,
And not from father’s mother
Nor my mother’s mother or father.
Has family tree any sense?
19.08.2010
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Orphan
MY father and mother are dead,
Nor friend, nor relation I know;
And now the cold earth is their bed,
And daisies will over them grow.
I cast my eyes into the tomb,
The sight made me bitterly cry;
I said, 'And is this the dark room,
Where my father and mother must lie?'
I cast my eyes round me again,
In hopes some protector to see;
Alas! but the search was in vain,
For none had compassion on me.
I cast my eyes up to the sky,
I groan'd, though I said not a word;
Yet GOD was not deaf to my cry,
The Friend of the fatherless heard.
For since I have trusted his care,
And learn'd on his word to depend,
He has kept me from every snare,
And been my best Father and Friend.
poem by Ann Taylor
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To be fanatic
Mother is a Christian, father, an Islam,
Mother’s mother, a Jain,
Mothers father, a Buddhist,
Father’s mother a Saivite,
Father’s father a Vaishnavite,
And their forefathers none,
Which religion must I be fanatic of?
24.10.2009
[saivites = followers of God Siva;
Vaishnavites = followers of God Krishna]
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Wrong Question
this morning
you cry and with sobbing you report about
a child being mauled by the police
at the dead end
of Del Pilar street near the
municipal cemetery
the child was running away from
five policemen who kept on chasing him
and they caught him
and asked his age, his name, his father, his mother
and he said he is 19, Kiko, his father is Pepo, and his mother Karing
his father a fisherman and his mother a vendor
and he is from the far mountain
and just arrived to the city
and since he is frail and pale and looks like a sick child
he reaped the suspicion that he is a drug addict
and they mauled him almost to death
and he was hospitalized and charged
resisting arrest
Someone asks, not bothered at all by an imagination
of blood and broken bones and abuse of authority
'But why did he run away, in the first place? '
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
My Father's Room
I saw a picture in my father’s room,
tucked away in a worn paper box.
It was of him and my mother,
holding hands.
They were young too.
My mother a beauty in her violet blouse,
and my father in an old T-shirt.
They smiled.
As I sat,
wondering who the photographer was,
my Father came home,
and asked me to mow the grass.
poem by Christopher Parsons
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Orphan
My father and mother are dead,
Nor friend, nor relation I know;
And now the cold earth is their bed,
And daisies will over them grow.
I cast my eyes into the tomb,
The sight made me bitterly cry;
I said, "And is this the dark room,
Where my father and mother must lie?"
I cast my eyes round me again,
In hopes some protector to see;
Alas! but the search was in vain,
For none had compassion on me.
I cast my eyes up to the sky,
I groan'd, though I said not a word;
Yet GOD was not deaf to my cry,
The Friend of the fatherless heard.
For since I have trusted his care,
And learn'd on his word to depend,
He has kept me from every snare,
And been my best Father and Friend.
poem by Jane Taylor
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Who are these people?
Who are these people? where are they streaming? Glass eyes tight shut as though they were dreaming?
Garrotted, throats slit as a token of sacrifice to the eternel god's,
Bodies cast down to the depth's of brooding pete bogs.
'Did you surrender yourself, your will to the ritual, Or be this simply a punishment for a crime, we shall never know.'
Sword's split skull's, not hard enough to kill
Just to lull, least drag their victims senses into the void.
Calling on the Goddess of spring through to autumn, of summer's sun and winter rain
Only your head, throne of the soul survives the passage of time to breathe again.
'From where did you come? ' ask's the child to his mother
'From my mother, her mother before her'
'So where does my father fit into this, what seem's such simple a matter? '
'He work's his hand's to the bone, then come's home late, wait's at the table just to get fatter.
That's what he does, he seems happy enough, he has no illusions to shatter'
'What off my father, from wence doth he stem, from his father and father before? '
'Nay, It goes way further than that, to back when, our only mother was the mother of yore
Mother of earth, blessed mother of pearl, reveal to us the wisdom's with which you blanket the world.
poem by David Lacey
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
First Teacher
First teacher is Mother
Next comes father
Mother gives birth
Mother is the earth
After five years
Father takes care
No substitute of
Father and mother
And they are ours
Life's newspaper.
poem by Gajanan Mishra
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!