Halloween is fun but it's over and the
candy-scamming spooks
are back in class.
Turkeys wearing pilgrim hats are taped
on the windows and the President
pardons some tom
who has no idea what these talky apes are laughing about.
He'd rather be out in the woods,
eating fruits and nuts
and taking a run at your car on a dirt road when you blow by
for cider and a donut.
From what I read, pilgrims
were a pretty constipated bunch.
When I was outed, the family holiday invitations
dried right up. Poof!
After Halloween, the faux dead rest, but when real people die,
sometimes it takes some time.
Some make nice
some get high
some find a new family
some suicide.
Me, I survived, hanging out with the fruits and nuts,
and my blood and kin?
Dead to me as if they'd fallen on some foreign shore.
_________
for Dverse Poetics: Epiphany In The Time of Holiday
Shay,
ReplyDeleteWow. This broke my heart. I didn't see the turning point on the holiday diss coming, and it backed me right up against the pain of being cut off from the "living," dead with their sham thanksgivings (nice Halloween tie-in) which pay no more honor to pilgrims than pardoning turkeys. How you wrap all the incongruities up and then cast them down on a "foreign shore" devoid of the love of true family is a poetic tour de force! And I lie not.
pax,
dora
Like they say, things get so much better when you give up hope. In those dopes. Your final line parks the shiv where it belongs.
ReplyDeleteVery powerful poetry, and such well-worked lines on the absurdity of wretched intolerance. A sad read, and admiration for the quality of your words.
ReplyDelete"when real people die, sometimes it takes some time." That is a true epiphany, as tough a truth as it is. As well as "Dead to me as if they'd fallen on some foreign shore." Here's to the fruits and nuts and turkeys that survive, that carry on, that never asked for pardon.
ReplyDeleteShay, you are fam-i-ly to me. Cheers to the Turkey survivors, to you. Great poetry as always!
ReplyDelete"When I was outed,"
ReplyDeleteThat's really awful, Shay. Your poem is amazing and powerful, but so sad.
Yours,
David [ben Alexander]
http://skepticskaddish.com/
Shay--I'd never heard of Melissa Ferrick... What a singer-songwriter. Your lines about the tom and the pardon made me think of the West Wing episode about the turkey pardons. Allison Janney was brilliant in that episode--like she was in the whole series.
ReplyDeleteWe all need unconditional love. So sorry it was absent when you were most in need of it.
ReplyDeleteThe title seems whimsical, but the meat of this poem is both bitter and triumphant. In this case, the turkey pardons itself, and heads out to a life where it can be its natural self, not an artificially engineered, distorted parody more acceptable to the constipated. Not an elegant comparison so forgive me, but freedom is freedom, and it's better to live than to die slowly in a living prison, the victim of the expectations of others. You take a difficult subject for some here, Shay and make it universally understandable and relatable, one of your more amazing gifts. Fine work.
ReplyDeleteWhat Joy said. Their loss. Grrrrr.
ReplyDeleteSo sad to read of this negative epiphany. Glad to hear you survived: there's a lot to be said for fruits and nuts :-)
ReplyDeleteTo be ousted must be terrible... but at least the fruit and nuts will save a turkey even better than the president's pardon.
ReplyDeleteThat is sad indeed but you are happy with the fruits and nuts and stuff. You got your freedom to live your life and that is blessing in itself.
ReplyDelete"From what I read, pilgrims
ReplyDeletewere a pretty constipated bunch."
yeah, this is the time of year i start looking for rocks to crawl under. a little bit of family is a good thing, anything more then that, no thanks. enjoyed the read shay.