i met him once
in another plane
beneath pale blue sky
surrounded
by cold grey towers
older than time
i remember
walking by myself
down archéd hallways
stretching long
sullen and dim
devoid of life
life lived not here
though it did pass through
in its erring quest
to fathom
what it all means
this strange journey
i met him here
where corridors crossed
through ages brooding
we alone
held in our gaze
one another
his face showed pain
fathomless concern
i saw not in life
but here now
in this city
Necropolis
we did not speak
though thoughts in balance
poised long on his lips
unable
to form one word
from his pained heart
not one thing moved
in this agéd place
where motion and time
stood frozen
as in silence
our gazes locked
i saw his pain
his longing to know
how i was doing
in absence
of his own life
he took from me
Author notes
featured in:
blackmail press: www.homestead.com/NZPoetsOnline/index.html (Issue 15)
this poem is about a dream i had wherein i met my father in "Necropolis". in the dream, i knew this to be the name of the city, which is to say "City of the Dead". my father killed himself when i was ten years old.
Written December 23rd, 2001
In a list
A contest entry
- What Will Happen to Us when We Die.... by Nicolisis.
300 points, ended October 21, 2004, 17 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 27 of 27
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Superb
some of the lines remind me of my relationship with my dad...i like the point of view in which this was written.
KAY
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from the poem i'm currently working on, which will be called "Unbounded", in memory of Art Bell's wife who passed away on the 5th:
...
as silhouettes break free from indistinction,
the shock of transformation slowly fades
until the mind can sense a subtle touch
where creosotes sing ancient roundelays.
yes, regardless of one's religion... has it ever occured to you that there is a rather strong instinct to search among the clouds or the stars of the sky when addressing the departed? why is it we look straight up? do we posses some inner knowing of where the essence of the departed go? -
Since I've recently lost many close to me, including my Father, and without doctrinating anything, I have realized that so much happens when someone closely connected ................leaves.
It's as though they really don't. Sometimes the dreams are apprehensions, or tiny pieces of bilia that float to the top of our conscious selves.Sometimes they are the last visuals being stored in our minds after watching the Food channel, or another's impressive narrative.
But many times, they are our darling Lord's permissions for them to connect with us,...give us insight, surprise, bewilderment, but most of all.....................closure.
I wonder about those who've lost their fathers at so early an age. Is it worse than going through, then losing, a time-span of filial communion? Do these impressions kick in and are there more satisfactions because they DO come to all your recitals, concerts, and student/teacher conferences?
Or is the fact that those things weren't completed, nor did the fragile child ever know what was the thing that Daddys do?
I ache thinking about it, Erin. The pit of absence. The space.
No WONDER we have an Almighty whose paternity exceeds the sins of the fathers. How merciful is THAT..!?
Loved this.I didn't know you wrote in free verse. It's commendable!
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A poem about your father I can only assume. My father too is void from my life but that is my choice as he is a sick man and should be in prison. I have not seen him since i was 3. I am 26 now. I enjoyed reading this. It made me wonder how it would be if my father and i met. Would he appoligize for his abuse? Would he even care that he hurt me profoundly as all sexual abuse does. I dare not think of that man as my father. To me he died when i was but three.
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i really like this poem!!!! keep up the good work!
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good job
I imagine you dream about that a lot, since it was a very traumatic thing to have happen for a ten year old. I know life can be very difficult anyway, and things like that just further complicate things. Who knows how your life would have been different if he had lived? In any case, this is an excellent poem. -
i recall intending for this to have a vague feel to it. there was something so vague about the dream. it was only after waking that i realized who it was, in fact, a week or so had passed where i pondered the dream daily before it suddenly hit me, filling my body and brain with chills in that moment that didn't dissipate for several minutes, numbing my mind completely with a calm sort of shock as it dawned on me that this ... was ... a ... visitation!
sometimes i think i have learned more from my dreams than i have from anything i've experienced in the waking world. -
The poem was hard to understand before I read the author comment, the "him" pronouns made it pretty open to what it could mean. After I re-read it, I understood the small comparences to another world, and the dead. I liked the calmness I felt in the poem, at least I hope thats what you were getting at. I've dealt with family death and, it's kind of numbing and you feel like there's a pseudo-calmness,that's how I've felt atleast. The tone of the poem was nice. Great poem, thank you for sharing.
>>Kami<< -
excellent
Well there you are then, Thank for sending me here. Thats just waht I am talking about. Open your heart now and find him again in his place of peace. Where he has worked it out and now understands. Thanks for sharing this with me. A great write as expected. I will be reading more of your work from now on.
Hugs
Jan -
Very interesting one, I would love to use all this big words in my comment but unfortunately I am not a good poet at all. All I try to do is make my fealings pour and make them rhyme, while sometimes it happenes naturaly, I sometime have to force the rhyme. Today I finally understood what teachers say that a poem doesn't necessarily have to rhyme. Now the issue is why it is that this is a good piece. To be honest I have not clue. I just know that for the first time I actually finish reading a poem that doesn't rhyme and actually understood it. Nice work!
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i would love to sit here and tell you how i much i love the descriptions, wording, and that i can only imagin how much work that you put into this. i can't tell you exactly how this poem made me feel, and what i would like to add to it, becuase it is almost perfect as it stands. I would like to be able to be in some way constructive, but i like the concept to much to change anything. That darling, is just icing on the cake, and i love cake.
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"...it is very unlikely that future critics would connect this poem to a dream i once had about a walk through the city of necropolis, where the dead may call the living to meet them. in this case, the dead was my deceased father..."
I am afraid I must disagree.
The first two lines and the entire 3rd stanza I took to be referring to a dream.
The fifth stanza seemed quite exactly to say that you were with a spirit of someone you knew in life and that you were in a city of the dead (I heard reference to a "necropolis" before)
"...his pained heart..." and the first half of the last stanza indicated the spirit was feeling regret.
Finally, the last two lines to me immediately meant suicide. These parts put together gave me a tragic tale of a dream in which you met someone close to you, in the city of the dead, who committed suicide, regretted it and wanted to let you know he still loves you. Given the obvious pain and concern the spirit was showing, I figured you were dreaming of your dad...not that vague if you ask me...
This is a wonderfully written, yet tragic piece. My heart goes out to you.
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I believe you met your Father while Astral travelling as I too have travelled to visit a dying friend on the other side of the world. no need to worry about your dad, he will be happy where he is, they are all forgiven, heaven is a beautiful place, accept your fathers forgiveness so he can move on with his life~angelica
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nice!!!!
*rav* -
Excellent rhythm and flow to this poem - very poignent and full of emotion - beautiful - Thank you for entering my contest and good lucj! Luv Niky xx
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this one made me think
And believe me, when something like this happens, then it must be VERY GOOD
Really awesome write you posted!
Good luck in this contest!!
Leander -
dreams are weird things they reveal so much and yet so little, they tell so much about our inner self and make us confront the things we fear most and sometimes their reality/s are skewed but the meaning/message always remain true...anyways, some of the images you portrayed in this poem are very vivid, the emotions are very strong yet still somewhat reserved whicih make this really well written. keep up the great work
Shanelle
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wow this is really good, and this might sound really kinda stupid, but i've been reading the chronicles of narnia by c.s.lewis and this sounds like the city of charn he talks about in the first book, "the magician's nephew" because it was very aged and silent and still, but there is a difference, something changed in charn. an evil queen named Jadis was awakened by the stupidity of Digory who just had to ring the enchanted bell after being told not to by his little friend.
anyway i must be boring you.
-great write-
-Lorelei -
Amazing poem! It's makes you think
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A MUST READ.
I've had similar dreams.
This is a very haunting piece. I read it the day I saw it posted, but could not find it in me to comment on it.
I wanted to read it more than once, and I wanted to be able to ingest it; I gathered that it was your father the first time I read it, and was impressed not only with your writing ability all over again, but with the measurement of words and what they can do to a reader.
I applaud, over and over. -
I find this to be an extraordinary piece. However, you have it listed with your symmetrical verses. Stanza one deviates from your pattern with its fourth line. "by cold grey towers" Perhaps if you cut the word grey, or the word cold, it would bring your verse back into symmetry.
It is such a moving piece. Incredibly sad. Especially after your explanation.
Absinthe
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In that case, this poem has been intensified by a thousand. So much depth
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hrrrm... i see this piece is a little too vague. but, so be it, i'll never change a thing. if this poem were to out-live me by a few centuries, it is very unlikely that future critics would connect this poem to a dream i once had about a walk through the city of necropolis, where the dead may call the living to meet them. in this case, the dead was my deceased father, who killed himself when i was 10 years old -- this poem is about an astral reunion with his spirit, seeing his regret, and realizing he knew too late that he had made a mistake...
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Excellent
I don't won' to look too deeply into this one, because you may be writing about another person, and not yourself. At times, I did feel that you were refering to yourself, but I have a feeling it may have been someone else. This piece is really, really touching, and amazing. I looked at the date, adn before I read it I was expecting something like September 13th or something. A man walking towards one of the planes, somehow aware of his own destiny, but when I saw that it was Dec 23, I thought that maybe he was longing for something... I don't know. I can't think properly now. But this is a really nice write. As always, you amaze me. Keep it up. -
Wow- this is a wonderful poem, I had to read it twice but I think it's about seeing Christ, the fact that it was written two days before Christmas and the pain (relating to the crucifiction, as well as man's destruction of God's world) led me to believe this. A well written, deep poem I liked it a lot- keep writing and thanks for commenting on my poem
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I partially agree with Del, only that I don't think you were 'talking' with your alter ego, I think that you were talking with yourself in the depth of your mind. I, of course, may be wrong too
As always, I enjoyed reading your thoughts in free verse.
K&L
Mari
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mysteriously spiritual
Hi Erin,
I am not sure if the chap you met was a fragment of yourself, but my gut instinct is to think so. It seemed to me that you had some sort of dream into another dimension where an alter ego may dwell. This is the first thoughts to come to mind on reading this, so I expect you will let me know just how far off base I am. Enjoyable, and the form seemed to be ideal.
Cheers,
Del
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