Elsa's word pieces
GENTLE STATES OF MIND
GRIEF, SADNESS, LOSS
INNER A-BOMB
ANGER, FRUSTATION, RAGE
LONGING, LONELINESS
Making My Dreams Come True
THOUGHTS ABOUT
STATES of MIND
poems for fathers
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THE NIGHT BEFORE THE FOREVER DARK
the night before the dark
the day before the forever night
the evening before the total dark
the closing of my father's mind
I fall down crying in a dream
he has died
and I have not said good-bye
because he lives
at moments
because he flickers
in and out
so on
the day before the forever night
I still
see him
my father
alive
his mind
is not yet
forever dark
it blinks in and out
he asks
he asks questions
like a child
he wonders like a child
the cat has a second litter of kittens
so she is, he says, a grandmother now
no, she is, once more, a mother, I reply
oh, he goes, not sure
why this time she is not a grandmother
a few minutes later, he again says,
so she is a grandmother now
he is seventy-four
so young, so very young
he is the age to be a grandfather
and he has no grandchild
he is not
forever young
but on the night
before the total dark
I hold him in my heart
in my wakeful mind
and wonder
where has the time gone?
I am your daughter
I used to be a child
your child
I am not a child
though still your child
and on this night
before the forever dark
I ask
what has happened
to my father
with his questioning, ever-wondering mind?
Elsa
August 3, 2003
© Elsa Schieder, 2003, 2009,
all rights reserved
publishing house - FlufferDuff Impressions 2003, 2009
Within 3 weeks he was dead. Car crash.
It felt like he was close by for at least a couple of years -
especially if I sat down outside.
Within a few weeks I wrote about something that
I felt so strongly about him, something I shared with him -
the sense of not being at home.
Chosen Home - A Reflection.
I suppose one could call this father and daughter stories,
because I was also exploring my own so frequent
sense of not being at home.
My father's worlds - he lived with so much intensity.
My Father's Worlds.
More poems for fathers.
Even better than just going to those other pieces,
stay in touch.
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE FOREVER DARK
I wrote this poem after a visit from my parents -
less than 3 weeks before my father died
in a car accident.
I spoke with him 45 minutes before his death.
I saw him 2 more times after
I wrote this poem. I was trying to spend more time
with my parents, so invited them over for lunch Sundays.
He had had micro strokes, tiny strokes - at least one
in a deep primitive part of the brain that sorts and files.
I could feel he didn't have much more time - but expected
a year, a couple of years, of most of hm still beng there.
Not this sudden cutting off.
On his last visit, when he was leaving - it was brilliant
sunshine in the late afternoon - he said,
why don't my shoes go on? He was stooping over,
with a shoe horn, the way he always did to put on his shoes.
You don't have your shoes, I said - something like that. Because yes, he was doing everything right - except that
he had forgotten to get his shoes.
He recognized what had happened, and laughed and
laughed. His sense of humor was all there.
So were many parts of his brain.
He was still chuckling when he left.
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There's much more to the story of his last week.
This isn't the place.
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Like in the dream, so much was incomplete between us.
But I was trying to get more closeness, to bridge gaps.
I was trying to listen to the dream. And that last time
I saw him, I did say something important, something
about love. I can't remember the words.
I wanted to say more - the next time.
Anyway, on the night before the forever dark,
he was still so much himself,
still with young young eyes.
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There is much I still want to do for him - especially to get
at least some of his creative works out into the world.
My deadline for the first of these works to be up:
Dec 31, 2008.
Elsa
August 14, 2008
Poems for Fathers. My Daughter to Father Poem.
Father Daughter Poem.
the night before the forever dark,
his mind not yet forever dark,
I fall down crying in a dream.
My Father, Myself.
There's no one I've felt closer to.
His creativity, intensity, desire.
His hope, his despair.
poems for fathers
a daughter to father poem
father daughter closeness
daughter to father poems
father daughter complexity
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Elsa
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A dozen
years ago,
I began to wake up
with word pieces -
words music, spoken word, songs -
in my head.
Escape velocity.
Echo of the echo.
Tank almost empty.
Can't cross the gap.
Welcome into my world.
WORDS MUSIC WORDS
Poems for fathers
I wrote so few poems for my father
I had such distance from my parents
Yet this father to daughter poem
comes from father daughter connection
one of the deepest connections in my life
Poems for fathers
daughter to father poems
father daughter poem,
father daughter poems,
poems for fathers
You were closest to me
when we were apart
And I could always feel your love for me
Your love and sense of sameness -
same in our creative drive,
our intense aliveness,
our hoping and dreaming
And now, these pale things
daughter to father poems
father daughter poems
poems for fathers -
it can't bring you alive
Today is August 14th,
just over 5 years since I wrote this -
this daughter to father poem
that came from my falling down crying in a dream
Today is August 14th.
In a week - just over a week -
it will be 5 years since you died.
Will there be more daughter to father poems,
more poems for fathers,
poems
for you?
You are right at the core of something else -
other writing - in my own, my chosen home -
you who never seemed to feel fully at home
like me, who has also not felt fully at home
Daughter to father poems,
poems for fathers
-
you feel most alive when I see the photos
Images, images of you, not words,
not daughter to father poem words
I know you always wished me well
wished to help
didn't know how
like you couldn't help yourself
reach from the intensity of your dreams
and well of creativity.
Anyway, here's one daughter to father poem -
quiet grief.
Elsa
August 14, 2008
© copyright - Elsa Schieder - 2008, 2011, all rights reserved
THE START TO BE ON THE WEB BY
December 31, 2008 -
A GIFT TO MY FATHER AND THE WORLD
and I have done this ...
it is now only November 7, 2008
and several of his poems are up, including ...
DU UND DEINE HEIMAT - Heimat Gedichte and
DIE SEHNSUCHT - Sehnsucht Gedichte
poems for fathers - or much more, one small poem on my father -
a man who wrote so many poems himself