Tarzan, Superman
Squishy-eyed priest of our clan
I’ll never walk a mile in your skin
The vaults I have collected
Are grown-up, closed off
separation
Blank of pain and shame
Your soft white garmented heart
pale dough of skin
hair too thin
knobby knees that I clung to
giant fingers, big as hands
Images of a man disconnected
from affliction, guilt and grief
secrets you must keep
hurts tucked away
I have traced your origin
Wanting to meet you in
wormy bald seclusion
To comprehend
the disgust of whorey kin -
that “dirty slut” you hurled at me
when I was sixteen
was saved up over the years,
withheld from its intended
To observe the dark
fear of being found out
with beer in the fridge
or real filth on your lips
or in your hands
or your secret hideout
along with the bird guts
but salt-aired suburbia
held stunted trees
and powdery, clicking artifacts
nothing real
none of you there
I return repeatedly to a day
spent with three old hags
Wrinkled witch faces
and growling voices
breathing fire over their cards
They told me nothing
I don’t think they ever knew you
and what you knew of them
was slightly askew
their spells were cast before you
their love was taken and given to you -
the last hope; chosen one
Has to be one in every dozen
Beneath the antics
did you watch like a boy
in the dark theater
as your story rewound
and started anew
a new cast of goofs
but the old, tattered script
a noir so surreal, but
cleaned up as a show,
sweeping it under
the same old rug.
Your complacent horror
at passing on this birthright,
Doesn’t compare with
the relieving surprise
of discovering its emptiness.
Your strings are unraveled
You just go along
in your bleak repetitions,
a man I don’t fully know
Who I achingly love
in spite of the mystery
because history can remain,
the known will suffice.
Perhaps you really did
keep us safer, happier
than you ever were
We can thank you
for that, at least.
(c) Tasha Chinnock 2006
2 comments:
Well here's a view I haven't heard before! It's kind of like an inside joke poem... but I'm kind of sad to understand it.
I knew this one would come out negative to those who "got it", but the real message is just that there are so many things that we can never know about someone who lived before we did. We piece together the bits we find out, but it isn't really a true picture of a person's soul or of their life. So, in the end, we have to accept that a person is so much more than we can ever know and be grateful for the wonderful parts of them that have blessed our lives. (See? You totally didn't get THAT out of it! I guess I still need to learn how to say it all to OTHERS and not just myself).
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