Thursday, July 28, 2016

Robert Verdon, #221, Late Victory


at seventy-five,
sleeping at all hours
bored and losing
the will to live

she looked out the
nursing-home window
as the sun set in fake lace

an hour passed
maybe a day
her book was taken
her watch had stopped

she felt
growing senescence
a buttress root
of a great tree
in boggy ground

there was a flurry of cold chatter

no, it was rising
her mother had lived
past her century

the young one was speaking
ringlets and vocal fry
the doctor’s opinion
had been revised

she was going home.

9 comments:

  1. A very fine poem, Robbie, and a different thing altogether -- nonetheless yours reminded me of this thing of mine.

    A Very Sharp Fragment

    The most beautiful woman in the world
    present today at the moment of this poem
    is safe in a psychiatric unit maybe in Indiana
    and somewhere a very sharp fragment got
    stuck in the mind she got on the wrong track
    years ago she conceived an idea that all of love
    was poisoned and all of gaze was murderous
    we are born to die and we must suffer the years
    medications come and go like nervous visitors
    she screams whenever someone looks at her
    she reads then doodles to pass the next 30 years
    calm down it’s alright you’ll never meet her.

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  2. More beautiful phrases Robert 'sun set in fake lace' 'ringlets and vocal fry' Also think the buttress root great tree boggy section is a rich effective image in the middle there - great shift

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  3. Thanks Rob, Lizz.:)
    Your poem is powerful and heart-rending, Rob — have a close friend who has mental problems, not an easy thing to deal with.

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  4. Thank you, Robbie (or are you Robert, as Lizz called you above?) to feel all that, and to be powerless and unheard; makes me sad and angry. Weren't all mental illnesses called dementias, at one time??

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  5. Yes, nothing is worse than institutionalisation.
    As to my name, I really don't mind Robbie or Robert, I have an account with Blogspot under the name of Robbie Verdon (which I was called as a child too) but I guess most people call me Robert (except my mother and sister who call me 'Rob', which I don't really like), then there are those who call me Roberta but that's another story …

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    Replies
    1. Ha. In my life I've known some most excellent people called Robert, Robbie or Rob. The last 2 names I share with you...although not Robert. (My younger sisters tend to call me Robbie when they are under stress.) My Rob (preferred) comes from Robbins, an old family name, my middle name. :)

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    2. :) Robert is my middle name; my first is David but I never use it. (My cousin David and I were living in the same house when I was very small, it got confusing.)

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