Sunday, September 16

UNTITLED

I knew a man

Amiable, sensitive
Always had a beer in his hand
Loved the Oakland Raiders.
Friends with the band
And though I was much younger,
Didn't give a damn
He never dismissed me
Or looked past me,
He was a good guy.
He had migraines he couldn't
Ever get rid of, though
I didn't know it
I suppose he had a tough time
Trying not to show it
Popped Excedrin like candy
Trying to cope.
He died of cancer in his thirties
I dunno, maybe early forties
What should have been the prime of his life,
We watched him shrink and die.
I never had a real chance to say goodbye.

I knew of a woman
The grandmother of a friend
We were in one of those places
They don't care about you.
She was part of one of those families
They seem to forget about you.
Put her in a home,
So she could be taken care of
She was so scared, but they
Told her they would be there
Then they were gone.
That kind of home is not a home
She died alone,
Complications with her diabetes.
The staff on hand so seldom checked in
They could have saved her,
She must have been so scared.
I just hope she blacked out.
I just hope she wasn't scared.

Believers say,
"It's all part of God's plan."
"The Lord has a place for us all."
What a joke.

3 comments:

Hans said...

Tough is life, making us find our way through like some gauntlet. We just have to do what comes from our hearts I believe - and ACCEPT the outcome, not looking back and adjusting to what happens as we go into the future. Sad about the people in your blog, but it's part of life - just not always fair when, why, and how it happens.

Thesaurus Rex said...

This reminds me a little of a brilliant play/2 part series on the bbc a few years ago. It was called shooting the past, about a photo library and how photos are not just stills to be looked at and ignored but 1000th of a second of somebody's life, a life that continued past the shot and had joy or tragedy etc. The photo library was to be shut down, the job of the eccentric folk who ran it was to persuade the new owners not to shut it down. Brilliant script acting and direction. See if you can find it somehow Meta cos I know you'll love it to bits. Very good US/Brit/past/present culture clash stuff.

Metamatician said...

OK, thanks Mr. Bolan (get it, T-Rex). That sounds like an amazing show. Very creative idea - bizarre too, because I just caught myself thinking the other day how photographs were like stolen moments (or copied, to be nicer about it) from another's life. There was a second before it and a second after it, and that moment itself passed so instantly that no one even took account of it on its own. Yet, because of the photo, we have an eternity to gaze at it and construct a world of memories around the expressions on the faces and the whirling backgrounds. I'll scour the searching sources I know, but it might be hard to find something like that... if you remember the name or any more details, would you please let me know? That kind of stuff trips me out, freaks me out a little, but also makes this "time" thing a bit more concrete as a physical dimension, just as tape recorders and video recorders / editing equipment have for us moderns. A hiking expedition to one of the most remote countries in the world (a sovereign village cluster in Siberian/Tibetan USSR) brought a movie camera and a projection screen with them and completely blew the villagers mind with it some time in the 90s. I'll try to find you the link. Why they would do such a thing, I'm sure. It's like making a cat stare at itself in the mirror until it GETS IT.

Thanks again.

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