150 Father poems

As the father turns away from the thought of his failure, the hands remove his glasses and rub his eyes over and over, drying the nonexistent tears. Unknown to the one who is troubled about losing his hair, his fingers stroke his baldness as he speaks. The body, our constant companion, understands the loneliness of the hostess in her dark driveway, embracing herself after the guests who promised more and soon have gone, and even visits the old schoolteacher who reads the same happy ending to each new class, working her toes in her shoes. How could the people of the kingdom not have known the curse of sorrow was nothing more than a long sleep they had only to wake from? In dreams the body, which longs for transformation too, suddenly lifts us above the dark roofs of our houses, and far above the streets of the town, until they seem like any other small things fastened to earth.

Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. breaking. / When In A Ballad of Remembrance(1962), the line between these two lines reads: "and smell the iron and velvet bloom of heat." While this line was deleted, the version in A Ballad of Remembrance is still a sonnet. There are other variants between both versions; mostly relating to where the line breaks. When breaking. / When In A Ballad of Remembrance(1962), the line between these two lines reads:"and smell the iron and velvet bloom of heat." While this line was deleted, the version in A Ballad of Remembrance is still a sonnet. There are other variants between both versions; mostly relating to where the line breaks. the rooms were warm, he’d call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, Speaking indifferently to him, who had who had In A Ballad of Remembrance: who’d driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere austere Grave, sober; and lacking adornment and lonely offices?

Lying asleep walking Last night I met my father Who seemed pleased to see me. He wanted to speak. I saw His mouth saying something But the dream had no sound. We were surrounded by Laid-up paddle steamers In The Old Quay in Greenock. I smelt the tar and the ropes. It seemed that I was standing Beside the big iron cannon The tugs used to tie up to When I was a boy. I turned To see Dad standing just Across the causeway under That one lamp they keep on. He recognised me immediately. I could see that. He was The handsome, same age With his good brows as when He would take me on Sundays Saying we’ll go for a walk. Dad, what am I doing here? What is it I am doing now? Are you proud of me? Going away, I knew You wanted to tell me something. You stopped and almost turned back To say something. My father, I try to be the best In you you give me always. Lying asleep turning Round in the quay-lit dark It was my father standing As real as life. I smelt The quay’s tar and the ropes. I think he wanted to speak. But the dream had no sound. I think I must have loved him.

Most truly honoured, and as truly dear, If worth in me or ought I do appear, Who can of right better demand the same Than may your worthy self from whom it came? The principal might yield a greater sum, Yet handled ill, amounts but to this crumb; My stock's so small I know not how to pay, My bond remains in force unto this day; Yet for part payment take this simple mite, Where nothing's to be had, kings loose their right. Such is my debt I may not say forgive, But as I can, I'll pay it while I live; Such is my bond, none can discharge but I, Yet paying is not paid until I die.

Leo bends over his desk Gazing at a memorandum While Stuart stands beside him With a smile, saying, "Leo, the order for those desks Came in today From Youngstown Needle and Thread!" C. Loth Inc., there you are Like Balboa the conqueror Of those who want to buy office furniture Or bar fixtures In nineteen forty in Cincinnati, Ohio! Secretaries pound out Invoices on antique typewriters— Dactyllographs And fingernail biters. I am sitting on a desk Looking at my daddy Who is proud of but feels unsure about Some aspects of his little laddie. I will go on to explore Deep and/or nonsensical themes While my father's on the dark hardwood floor Hit by a couple of Ohio sunbeams. Kenny, he says, some day you'll work in the store. But I felt "never more" or "never ever" Harvard was far away World War Two was distant Psychoanalysis was extremely expensive All of these saved me from you. C. Loth you made my father happy I saw his face shining He laughed a lot, working in you He said to Miss Ritter His secretary "Ritt, this is my boy, Kenny!" "Hello there Kenny," she said My heart in an uproar I loved you but couldn't think Of staying with you I can see the virtues now That could come from being in you A sense of balance Compromise and acceptance— Not isolated moments of brilliance Like a girl without a shoe, But someone that you Care for every day— Need for customers and the economy Don't go away. There were little pamphlets Distributed in you About success in business Each about eight to twelve pages long One whole series of them All ended with the words "P.S. He got the job" One a story about a boy who said, "I swept up the street, Sir, Before you got up." Or "There were five hundred extra    catalogues So I took them to people in the city who have a dog"— P.S. He got the job. I didn't get the job I didn't think that I could do the job I thought I might go crazy in the job Staying in you You whom I could love But not be part of The secretaries clicked Their Smith Coronas closed at five p.m. And took the streetcars to Kentucky then And I left too.

Sometimes after the flight show when my father flew in formation with the other pilots, diving and somersaulting in his Cessna, he took us up. The crowd was driving off, the windsocks disappeared. We flew above the empty air strip, past the silver hangar, the ballpark, then the bridge, beyond the school; and then, if there was fuel enough, we flew to Hidden Lake where, just below us, Grandpa was fishing in his rowboat, looking up, waving his hat, and Grandma hurried out, wearing her yellow apron. Oh, if only we could go down and fish for perch with Grandpa! But it was nearly sunset, and we flew back over woods and highways toward the town, and finally there we were above our block, our house, my Kool-Aid stand, my brother's blue two-wheeler in the drive. How small it was— how strange it seemed to look down on your life from somewhere else. And suddenly I was sick with loneliness. But we were all together: my brother with my father up in front, Mother beside me in the back. And yet we must be small from there: our empty yard, the Thompsons on their porch, the Barton's Airedale trying to climb the fence, and Mother's clothesline, my sweater hung to dry. Just then, if I had seen myself on the swing set, I would not have been surprised.

My father at the dictionary-stand Touches the page to fully understand The lamplit answer, tilting in his hand His slowly scanning magnifying lens, A blurry, glistening circle he suspends Above the word “Carnation.” Then he bends So near his eyes are magnified and blurred, One finger on the miniature word, As if he touched a single key and heard A distant, plucked, infinitesimal string, “The obligation due to every thing That’s smaller than the universe.” I bring My sewing needle close enough that I Can watch my father through the needle’s eye, As through a lens ground for a butterfly Who peers down flower-hallways toward a room Shadowed and fathomed as this study’s gloom Where, as a scholar bends above a tomb To read what’s buried there, he bends to pore Over the Latin blossom. I am four, I spill my pins and needles on the floor Trying to stitch “Beloved” X by X. My dangerous, bright needle’s point connects Myself illiterate to this perfect text I cannot read. My father puzzles why It is my habit to identify Carnations as “Christ’s flowers,” knowing I Can give no explanation but “Because.” Word-roots blossom in speechless messages The way the thread behind my sampler does Where following each X I awkward move My needle through the word whose root is love. He reads, “A pink variety of Clove, Carnatio, the Latin, meaning flesh.” As if the bud’s essential oils brush Christ’s fragrance through the room, the iron-fresh Odor carnations have floats up to me, A drifted, secret, bitter ecstasy, The stems squeak in my scissors,Child, it’s me, He turns the page to “Clove” and reads aloud: “The clove, a spice, dried from a flower-bud.” Then twice, as if he hasn't understood, He reads, “From French, for clou, meaning a nail.” He gazes, motionless. “Meaning a nail.” The incarnation blossoms, flesh and nail, I twist my threads like stems into a knot And smooth “Beloved,” but my needle caught Within the threads,Thy blood so dearly bought, The needle strikes my finger to the bone. I lift my hand, it is myself I’ve sewn, The flesh laid bare, the threads of blood my own, I lift my hand in startled agony And call upon his name, “Daddy daddy”— My father’s hand touches the injury As lightly as he touched the page before, Where incarnation bloomed from roots that bore The flowers I called Christ’s when I was four.

on the top shelf of the closet is the hat my father wears on special occasions it rests next to the large jar he saves pennies in his head is always bare when i see him walking in the street i once sat in his bedroom watching him search between sweaters and suits looking for something missing a tie perhaps then he stopped and slowly walked to the closet took the hat from the shelf i sat on the bed studying his back waiting for him to turn and tell me who died

When they did greet me Father, sudden Awe Weigh'd down my spirit! I retired and knelt Seeking the throne of grace, but inly felt No heavenly visitation upwards draw My feeble mind, nor cheering ray impart. Ah me! before the Eternal Sire I brought The unquiet silence of confused Thought And shapeless feelings: my o'erwhelmed Heart Trembled: & vacant tears stream'd down my face. And now once more, O Lord! to thee I bend, Lover of souls! and groan for future grace, That, ere my Babe youth's perilous maze have trod, Thy overshadowing Spirit may descend And he be born again, a child of God!

In the middle of the night, father Brought me a falcon. By morning, it ripped the wire and flew the hill Into the highway. When they found me in that car My sleeve stemmed in blood, I didn’t know what it was I was trying to kill. I saw a craft of orphans steaming down the river. They were dressed in white and silent as a séance. It was then I spoke to the bird. Already God is shaking his black seed Back into me.