Ditch the ads, upload images and much more - upgrade today from 5.95/month!
Read • Contests • Groups • Learn • Forums • Store • Help
 

inheritance

 

 

 

 

 

 

the men in my family
live two distinct lives

one before the heart attack
and the one that follows

i watch with great interest
as each moves
suddenly,
urgently from
this first life to the next

beneath
the ant-filled apple tree
i see small storms

gather in soft focus
on the dark
stones of their eyes
 
for the first time

familiar
among the dying things

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a list

A contest entry

    : , Your review:

    Comment Suggestion: What is your your first impression?
    : no Cost: 0 free left 0 points, You have (?)

Comments

1 - 34 of 34

  • afroqban
    September 23
    ?
    Edit | Reply
    im glad i decided to just view random poets, ur writing is amazing. its a pleasure to read your work and i cant until im done typing this comment so i can read more. great job here


  • Saffron gold member
    August 2

    Edit | Reply
    I have read this poem many times, and I have never commented on it until now...I have always thought that this was wonderful work. I know what those small storms are you speak of...

    Congratulations twice for your recognitions on this.


    Saffron


  • ArtFullyMe gold member
    July 31
    Edit | Reply




  • Cat gold member
    July 31
    Edit | Reply
    yay!

  • Suzanne Dia gold member
    July 28
    Edit | Reply
    .


  • Suzanne Dia gold member
    July 28

    Edit | Reply
    I remember really liking this the first time around..
    great selection for the contest.

    Gonna be in the city this evening, going to a folk singer/songwriter thing. Hoping it isn't too hokey, lol.

  • Thomas Scott gold member
    July 13
    Edit | Reply

    Brilliant.

    You are the best thing that's happened to me today.
    Hooray! A new favorite.


  • Zayra Yves gold member
    April 16

    Edit | Reply
    This is amazing Al. You are so right on...naturally from a personal point of view, but also from the collective, as I have witnessed this too. And, you know, I feel like I have done this too except not in the factual natural sense of it, so much as spiritually...I had a spiritual heart attack...and now I walk gently through the world wishing I had known then what I know now...which isn't much except to walk softly and smile a bit more. Great poem. I really enjoyed this piece a lot.


  • NoIQ gold member
    April 2

    Edit | Reply
    I sometimes wonder if men's vision of quietude is the same as women's. I don't know, but as tender as this piece is, it strikes me as very masculine in its vision. It is a poem that understands the intensity of the "small storms / [that] gather in soft focus / on the dark / stones of their eyes" as the proof of mortality hits with force. This poem is not just felt -- but seen. It is both emotional and observational. An astute vision of what mortality brings to our loved ones, our family, ourselves.

    A supremely beautiful and well-written poem. One of the few I have ever read that if shown blind, I could easily suggest had originally been published in the New Yorker, rather than AP.


    • Zayra Yves gold member
      April 16
      Edit | Reply
      Ah, yes, the Monte comment, and I agree...exceptional piece Al.

    • AJ Morelli gold member
      April 2
      Edit | Reply
      that is an incredibly generous comment Monte, i am truly flattered by it...


      thanks


      al

  • ArtFullyMe gold member
    April 2
    Edit | Reply


  • EvilKate gold member
    April 2

    Edit | Reply
    Everything that could be said, has been - stunning as always. You have that amazing talent for building complex stories with small stones.


  • Cat gold member
    April 1

    Edit | Reply
    i was thrilled when i realized you would actually write for my contest- you have made a habit of never doing that.. but i think
    perhaps it was because i wasnt the only judge here
    and i couldnt be accused.

    this is excellent of course-

    so many great images
    the ant filled apple tree
    the dark stone eyes


    just wonderful imagery in so few words-

    wondering about cutting the very first "the" so that you can use a "the" before the first "one"

    men in my life live two distinct lives
    the one before....

    and also the word "see" it has taken me about 20 reads to understand why it is there.. because it goes along with the "i watch" - i'm not sure it works without the "i" though..

    and that final stanza

    wow..

    in fact the entire thing... wow..

    a great creative take on the prompt- a great creative take on death and dying

    m






    • AJ Morelli gold member
      April 1
      Edit | Reply
      thanks, i don't think i can add a "the" to open line 3 because it would read "the one before the heart attack", two "the"s in 6 words is what i was trying to avoid... but i did add an "i" before "see" to make it read more naturally... you always leave such good suggestions, you can be my editor anytime

  • Swan song gold member
    March 29

    Edit | Reply
    I can relate completely as heart disease runs rampid in my family. Brother died last year. Dam good stuff here.


  • Peteskid gold member
    March 29

    Edit | Reply
    such insight here, a divide across generations of sharing and caring, imagery, depth, precision...so very well done ...PK

  • Nicole Hanna
    March 28

    Edit | Reply
    This has a wonderfully conversational tone to it. I can imagine just sitting around having this talk with you. Yet, it still strikes a very poetic pose, as it were, and evokes a desire to think on the reader's own family.


  • ArtFullyMe gold member
    March 25

    Edit | Reply

    Love the dark stones, the way that slides effortlessly into the 'dying things'. Excellent ( enviable ) lines.

    The ant-filled apples, a perfect image for age, or something soft and vulnerable.

    There is so much here beneath the surface of the lines tying in with the title -- that subtle inheritance we are all graced with, mixing with those, that exist in the genes.


  • Emerald13
    March 23

    Edit | Reply
    such a personal fear laid bear .... i love the observation of two lives - one is, of course, changed by heart attack, and the interest is real when the possibility is inherited ... a hint of neruda for me in the 5th stanza... again i must say, it is the individual voices of my favourites that make each, my favourite ...

    i read the suggestion of narrative but i cant see how you may overcome it ... it seems, to me, to be the underlying premise

    >>> Gina

  • jantastic
    March 20

    Edit | Reply
    You've effectively woven the personal with the universal, and still with your distinct voice.
    I find the second set of two lines a little too narrative almost, would like to see a little more of your poetic voice applied there.
    I have no doubt many readers can relate in their own way to this (even me) and you've added some nice concrete imagery with the ant-filled apple tree and the stones of the eyes.

    Yeah.


  • Balldinger silver member
    March 19

    Edit | Reply

    Given a bit of this...

    woah - AJ - this is mysteriously ominous. it draws charcoal pictures on white puffy clouds and waits to rain grey soot into unmarked souls. I'd laugh my ass off at it, but I'm too stunned in my silence and tears to accept its obscurely shaped consecrations - remarkably presented. You are a prime word crafter, my friend. ~ Ed


  • Nicolette gold member
    March 16

    Edit | Reply
    Didn't I tell you I'm sure you would come up with something amazing, Al?

    This poem is so very powerful from beginning to end... this poem presents itself as simplicity but it has such depth of thought and emotion - something I very much admire about your poetry. Just goes to show one does not need a 1000 words or swallow a dictionary to write real poetry.

    Excellent!

    ~ Nicolette


  • naked roots
    March 16

    Edit | Reply
    The way this is worded is wonderful and I loved those 3 ending lines.
    Excellent poem, as always.


  • Rowan gold member
    March 16

    Edit | Reply
    Funny how death brings one closer to life.
    This is a perfect entry for this contest~ I know this look.


  • Allyce May
    March 16

    Edit | Reply
    Argh! I knew you would do this! Come slinking along and casually enter something brilliant in the contest! Heh heh.

    I like the way you seem to have emotionally detached yourself in this poem, how you observe the sudden swing of human reaction from "the fenceline", and I'm thankful for the title - I think it ties everything together.

    Just amazing in its simplicity


  • Cvillelisa
    March 16

    Edit | Reply


    I like it.

    At first I wanted it to be less revealing of itself inside the poem -- thinking the heart attack lines should be in the title perhaps, but that's me and this poem very much belongs to your Voice, right from the one word title.

    Death presented with shivery foreshadowing yet looking backward (I know strange statement but that's me).

    Great poem for the prompt too.

    Good luck in the contest.

    Lisa


  • misselaineous gold member
    March 16

    Edit | Reply
    i am still not disappointed
    elaine


  • Night Hope gold member
    March 15

    Edit | Reply
    This is such an incredible poem, my Friend. It is so...pure. The last three stanzas were a punch in the gut for me. I know this legacy too well. I'm sorry you do, too. Good luck in Mary's contest, Poet. Wanda


  • Faithbound gold member
    March 15
    Edit | Reply
    You really are amazing.


  • Grunts Girl
    March 15

    Edit | Reply
    it reminds me of all the young people out there so unwilling to think anything can ever happen to them... illness or injury... the invinceble factor.

    I really liked how you had such a subtle turn of inwardness... not sure how to put it- due to one of the worst hangovers in my life...

    I look at my elders in my family and wonder which it will be for me? The heart or the mind...
    I so desperately hope I am blessed with just losing the heart and never the mind....

    and again.. you made me look inward as well to look at my own roots and darn it... see what i have to look forward to! lol

    that is on the surface level for me... I always read too deep into things but found something almost political here... you know the whole - how history repeats itself and those lessons get forgotten? on a world scale..

1 - 34 of 34