Poem Post: Visiting Grandpa

I feel like I am making up for lost time with the blog. Here's a poem I wrote in 03-04 around the time my mother's father passed. It's a sad little thing but it captured my thoughts at the time.

visiting grandpa


i found him trembling in room 504

i remember thinking he looked like a defeated Indian chief

his face looked sad, brown and weathered

i combed his hair

and spoon fed him lunch

his bruised hands held mine

i am sure he doesn't know who i am

vast sadness filled those halls

with or without,

we all die alone.

Poetry Post #1: Childhood Memories

I gave up writing poetry around the time Claire was born.  I just got tired of writing after about 10 years of writing poems (I would guess only 4 of those years was I consistently trying to write).  This might as well be a good place to post some. Most of my poems were fragments of ideas anyway.  Here are two based on childhood memories.  I always enjoyed writing about memories because they were so personal and easy to write. Maybe because I had a clear and simple goal when writing about memories....so that might explain it.

i was only a boy at the time.
you were drawing for me because i loved cartoons.
you drew a man looking over a fence,
with a big cartoon nose hanging over its edge.
slowly, the pen made its lines,
a bit unsteady and squiggly.
i remember you playing dominos.
i remember christmas morning blurs.
i remember you quiet and in the hospital.
i never knew you, mysterious grandfather
i was only a boy at the time.
but i still remember.


beach
the seagulls circled overhead
calling for our bread.
i told you to put the food away
before they poop on us.
i feel sick and vomit
grape soda/bologna sandwich into the sand.
those damn seagulls eat that instead.