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7 May 2018 – Blame & Presumption

Below, please find a poem very much in progress. It will always be so. Each time I attempt to express the encounter that engendered the poem, I falter and fail. I will never get it right because the original conversation contained convoluted premises full of pain and anger. Neither party is capable of expressing what he/she wishes to; however, each tries mightily. Perhaps you have had such conversations wherein the actual aim is not to communicate, but rather to wound. When such a dynamic is in play, “we have a failure to communicate,” a sentence spoken by two characters in the 1967 movie, Cool Hand Luke

Blame and Presumption

Do you think God let him come
            home at the end?                                                          I do not presume to know
                                                                                                            the mind of god

Somehow, he knew I needed him here                                      
                                                                                                You, who gave him no rest at all?

How can you say that to me
            now that he’s gone?                                                       Because your “love” caused him
                                                                                                            complete deprivation

You don’t understand! You never tried
            You’re the one who should have died!                           I remain unskewered by
                                                                                                            your cunning words

You leave and never even say good-bye                                     
            You never care                                                             I’m leaving now
                                                                                                            Interpret as you will
                                                
                                                            Both morph into
                                                            rising reflections

You can’t stay with me an hour in my grief
            much less watch with me a week                                   May flights of angels forget your name
                                                                                                Take from off my neck this steel chain

Go then! I’ll forget your name
            That’s just as well                                                          Your deviant blessing
                                                                                                            or emergent pain?

                                                            A door closes between
                                                                        the two
                                                                                    One cold. One mean
                                                                                                            Neither true




Background:
For the first time in the series of poems appearing in this Almanac’s Monday postings, I find myself too distressed to reveal the incident that engendered the poem. So, please forgive me for even attempting to capture its essence. The encounter, primal and ruthless, exhibits the type of episode that forever remains unfinished because it can neither be expressed nor resolved. 

Exploration 1: Are you familiar with conversations wherein both blame and presumption operate? What does it feel like? Unresolved? Full of anger? Accepting of things as they are? Compassion for the other person?

Exploration 2: Within the first four lines, a word appears in two different forms: God on the left and god on the right. Any thoughts on why the variance in capitalization? And no, this is not a mistake.

Exploration 3: The last line is “Neither true.” These two words imply that everything that is said above is false, or at least that the exchange is not authentic. Any thoughts on this?

Jack Pine Savage

Comments

  1. Wow! This sounds like a relationship ending argument. Maybe not. I'm always surprised what terrible things people can reconcile after saying or doing.
    I'm always the one on the receiving end of these "dialogues," trying to douse the fire as quickly as possible. Spineless? I suppose, but I'm harking back to my early evolutionary days as a worm.
    Ennaways, God-god: believers capitalize, others don't out of respect for the views of non-believers.
    "Neither true": the words are authentic enough, but perhaps there's an underlying love that will emerge once the fire has died down.

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