I have never felt more alone and I am a man who knows how
To be lonely. The batchelor’s promise, one kept like a vow
Reveals this. That if the woman is lost, or does not come along
You continue, seeking home within heartache, with or without
Her soft kiss. Equally, death is divorce in its most basic sense;
We all know it. And this is how it was with my parents
Who when I was fifteen split apart, to be bound by the need
To live on despite the connection between them. From meeting
As neighbours in 1960 to his driving away from our house in1985:
This was the timeline of their falling graph and shared chart.
So while I now have no-one, I still consider their marriage,
Ruinous as it was on one level, while romantically linked
On the next, as they both died today. My Dad in 1994,
And my mother in 2012. In her house now, I am at least trying
While being at best, circumspect. The end of my line as I have
No children. I failed to make a jewish grandmother, having had
Two lovely ones of my own. Perhaps because of circumstance, yes,
But also through some strange aspect of me, clearly lacking,
Which has meant that no girlfriend, or no previous lover
Of mine seeks my stone. For are we not all on a beach,
Each one of us sand-sourced pebbles, awaiting fate’s ocean
To carry us off or to clean the stains of the shore, such as
The guilt and grime we’ve collected. That awful pollution
Of distance in which the touch of those once held closely
Will become part of the soon spurned prick’s sad machine.
That sounds base. It is not. For let us be clear: lost lovers
Subsume, to become another part of your body. And if ones
Parents judge while still watching over, then the immaturity of it,
And the deep-set need is a child’s who is calling for love
As physionomy fuels him, propelling him through lost landscapes,
While staying at home, running wild. As I have been all these years;
Unmoored, hungry, searching, not for my parents replacement,
Or even of course for my Ex. Who is alive, or is not. I will never be told.
Complicated, and fused from the very same feelings which kept
My Mum and Dad so perplexed. I will never forget my Mum’s face
At my father’s funeral service. She looked so bewildered,
As if there were a hole at her side. I hold that hole now,
And entered it at her service. I have never left. Does that stop me
Find the woman I want? The wound’s wide. But it can’t be the cause.
Perhaps some past mistake bars me. And that is why in this poem
Of personal loss, I am frank. We all put up walls. Well, some of us
Live in the rubble. And there is as much glory in wanting
As there is an absence of shame in the wank. At least in this case.
Ejaculate is just the secret tears of the body. And while for most
It makes children, for me it is my own wedding gift. I give it now
To the girl I have always loved; warmed and wasted. Alone again,
In my marriage it is the spent matter through which every confessor
Must sift. For we all lose so much, and yet we keep going.
Whether further apart, or together what we give is the glue
Which repairs the shattered pattern within. As evidenced
By this deathday. And I am partly persuaded and joke
That I may share my own one with theirs. Afterall, we are all
Alone at that point. But what will we know? That’s the question.
Surely that once we had the chance of love and that it lasted
Of course, for some time. It is there in Eden Ahbez’s
Beautiful song as sung by Nat King Cole. Do you know it?
Nature Boy is the title and it contains the credo that many
Will have and was mine. ‘The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return.’ My parents had that.
They died today. Now they’re living. If just in this poem.
See tears corrupted tissues as flowers. They are the flags of loss,
Flying. And so, as you touch them, you can feel skin and sadness
And the lifting of love as it burns.
David Erdos 11/2/23
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