Mr. Joe Speaks with His Daughter
And when I found I had cancer I told my family
And I grabbed my daughter by the ears
And I pulled her face in close to mine
And I told her that I wished I would live forever
And that I believed I might
But that I was not sure
But that it mattered a lot that she understand
That to live is good
And to die is inevitable
And that they are to pass on their love and their best wishes
To their own
Who would be everyone who would ever exist after them,
Stars and sand, dollars and cents
And that someday, on a distant planet
A skinny, worthless old man would sit at the end of a row of grapes
Next to the shade of an olive tree
When his heart would not keep up
And time would slow down
And the blue above would become the deep smile of a young woman
And his chest would be thick and heavy with the happiness
That comes from being immersed in a force-field of pure love
And though he would imbibe the shallowest of breaths
He would be utterly refreshed
Transported
In the sunshine
i don’t know what to make of this. there is such violence “grabbed” and placed next to the idyllic vineyard. perhaps a bit more meter and rhyme could lend this piece the sort of pastoral force you seem to seek.
Comment by MattWriks — 8 February 2009 @ 10:32 pm
It needs the violence, or at least, the intensity. At any rate, ear-grabbing was an early 20th Century method of disciplining children. The double-ear grab is for emphasis.
Radiohead allusion alert!
Comment by Sunsun — 8 February 2009 @ 11:12 pm
i’m missing it. which radiohead?
Comment by MattWriks — 9 February 2009 @ 1:46 pm
No props for using AND to make this one sentence–actually part of one sentence, because it started with AND? (FYI $ & C)
Comment by Sunsun — 14 February 2009 @ 7:37 am