Poetic Interlude XLI

Frank
 
I haven’t slept; the dawn is here,
And I’m swept back to yesteryear.
A long-dead Uncle views the coast,
Embraces me; he is my host -
And in that faded Kodak room
We smoke, and sit, and toast our doom:
We share a certain malady -
The symptom of our family.
 
And though our blood stays smooth and sweet,
It rises to a certain heat -
and then I break another chair
       to take to wine in my despair
              and he’s run out into the rain
                      to scream aloud what’s in his brain
                              and on the scarred and wooden ground
                                       I’m seeking a forgotten noun
                                                he’s clawing at the skin beneath
                                                         the opera inside his teeth
I haven’t slept; the dawn is here,
And I’m swept back to yesteryear.
 
©2014 by Tyler J. Yoder. All rights reserved
Tagged: Family Stories That Are Completely True, Madness, Poetic Interludes, Poetry, Tyler J. Yoder, Writing