Her Heart Held Hope, but couldn't hold her

my first real poem beyond
a haiku about rabbits, foxes, and intelligence
published in an elementary school journal
entitled "Keepsakes"
"Writings by young people"
published in 1972
when I was nine

was written while walking
through campus at Berkeley
as a precocious 17 year old freshmen
urged out of high school
a year early by his pushy professor pa

thinking about the death of his brother
my uncle Joe at the age of 36
from lung cancer six months after
the death of his father

my crazy grandfather
a large tall bald man
who sliced off his finger
in an accident
when too rushed
to pay attention

who'd cut the throat of a lamb
held by my great grandfather
with a hack saw
served for dinner that night

a friend of the Navajo
who angered my grandma
by giving them his last dime
when her own family was still
found wanting

who allowed her to spend jail time
for his own boot legging
who went from outlaw to elected judge

who greeted us with
comic threats of castration
in spanish
whenever we came to visit

who's unusually civil
behavior and back pains
were later explained by
a cancer diagnosis
he hid from his wife and family
until his withered frame
could no longer keep the secret
from them

in funeral reunion photos of his father
Joe looked like death warmed over
he was dying too
from the same smoking cancer

I'd wanted to attend his funeral
only my poem made the trip
read by my father

an air force officer
uncle Joe's twin sons
honored him by following suit
in service of their country
one followed him into an early grave
though through different circumstances

David had heart troubles
an auto accident had left him
unable to continue a career
with a wife and an infant daughter
depression and divorce only deepened
the divide between his pride and expectations

took too many tylenol and bore the pain
of his liver being eaten inside out
for hours
no 911 call
alive when they found him
there was nothing they could do to revive him
his resolve was too true

my aunt his aunt
who could not bear children of her own
adopted
sister sibling to his father
contacted family and made
funeral arrangements in Pueblo
his brother Joe Jr.
flew back from Iraq

on my way back from Maryland
to California to
accompany my own brother home
who had his bout with cancer
in his testicle a decade earlier
who may have shot blanks
but shared my reluctance to parent

was wounded after his own divorce
had changed his name
to that of his mother's adopted father
sought to re-establish connections
with his own father's family

we arrived in the evening when within minutes
my grandmother received other
unanticipated visitors
her son and daughter in-law who told us
her grandchild, the son of her dead son
took his own life

we'd heard her laments
about uncle Joe and now wailings for David
leaving only Joe Jr. to carry on the name
in his lineage

details of his death hit home
I'd had my own impulsive pill popping
dances with death but had
decided to dial 911
seconds before I passed out
alone in my apartment
when an ambulance and charcoal pumped stomach
could still make a difference

while the cancer grew in my grandpa and uncle
from nicotine addiction
a mutation of my own mind and moods
moved me only to say, "okay"
in increasingly darker shades of tone
when prompted to reply
to paternal inquiry
dropped off at school
while pop professor went to work

I wrote my feelings down backwards
in scrawled diaries so curious college kids
could not read it
nor would my left dragging hand smear it
down in the basement of Moffit Library

news of a dorm room rape of an unknown stranger
preceded by binge beer drinking
all night card games of hearts
where I tried to steal all of the tricks
so I could shoot the moon
precipitated police to put me
in a padded cell for patients

led me to explanations for extreme
extrovert and introvert behaviors
court confrontations with an uncle
over holds
in wet sheets and haldol

had enough sense to know
parenting was not in my future
I was not that crazy

my parents were a paragon of why
marriage can fail
I encouraged divorce through
revelations of marital infidelity
found through snooping in mom's diary
I gave to my father
who tried to be a parent
to my mom who grew up in foster homes

missing half of my family tree
I never saw her father who married her mom
on Valentine's day
never met her mom
my other grandmother
when she wanted to reconnect
when I was in high school

heart damage
not to be healed with
death bed confessions of love
from Texas

I struggled through stigma
half in half out
of the closet

oriented toward an anonymous
online life where
I could share my life
with strangers as
polar paul

a catatonic case
zapped back into awareness
with electricity
still surges continued
beyond rational recovery
into erasure of my memory
to line the pockets of an ECT doctor
whose death I wouldn't mourn

an induced agoraphobia
clinging to companionship
distorting my own identity
seeking safety
fear of being alone

a companion's father's liver cancer
his and my fears
continued a connection
broken when he could
no longer keep up his part
of the illusion

an arthritic aunt died
when her heart muscles
could no longer flex enough
to provide blood to her body

she left behind a blind
wheelchair daughter
who needed a close
family member interpreter
to speak for her
whose husband had divorced her
in recent years and took the kids
I didn't go
I'd seen her in July
at the family reunion
an empty body could not do her justice
even though another daughter had married into
the biggest mortuary business in town

my father reported his niece
continued to be all smiles

my fall crisis from crushing news
about an engagement
to someone he'd known for months
when I'd been with him
for over a decade
led to paranoid delusions
cross country flights of family
Uhaul truck trips to lockers
iced Wyoming highway spinouts
voices only I could hear

frantic night phone calls about
first freeze flooding from
faulty plumbing forced
me back to Colorado to protect
my dwindling assets

caught in a Colorado
financial snowstorm of red ink
I sought shelter
in support groups of my own kind

straw shooting
sexual innuendo
I'd never heard before
was bandied about
after official post weekly gatherings
relocated to Denny's near Denver during dinner
June mothered Dave who was old enough to be her father
about eating healthy
to watch his cholesterol

I'd traveled an hour to the crossroads
fueled on my return trip with coffee fumes
after midnight
to simply get close
to kindness and compassion

my first friends in years
not connected with my estranged companion
blood binding
or online anonymity
encouraged me to connect
to others through coffee shop chatter and
open mic poetry

my first recital about a social worker
who cared more about her needs than her clients
was referred to in vague disjointed allusions
could have been any work place
her sex like my sexuality was in fact indeterminate

the second round that night
was a brief poem featuring
Spock and psychiatrists
humor camouflaged personal implications

poetry brought me out of my shell
posted poems with a pen name
set in motion events where
on and off line lives could collide
so I wouldn't hide or divide
myself any longer

in four short months I managed to make
connections with other poets who had
disclosed disorders
duplicates of mine

ideas of duplicity
dual identity doubts
denial and reciprocation
had me hidden and held back
hints in poems

passion and persistence
provoked polite questions from
a host who asked me to
read on the radio

powerful poems paul wow
without prodding or encouragement
by me
voiced by a host with no obligations
to do so
sparked fires of accomplishment
to send smoke signals to friends
who could appreciate the full impact
behind private poem symbols
the public was not privy to

all night audio editing sessions and track burning
to bring tangible CD evidence of my own self worth
thought I was hot

went to my Monday night meeting
hoping to have handshakes and hugs

the hidden meeting agenda behind
where and why
I'd never made a Monday night
poetry reading in Boulder

went through ritual name tag writing
attendance check list
greetings

humming along when
all the air was let out
of my hot hopes balloon
when it was announced
a fellow member had died

I envisioned euphemistic terms for suicide
would soon be forth coming
or perhaps an auto accident

wasn't expecting
heart failure at 27
to stop an infant's mother
June did not come for June
death did
her new home and husband
had one less heart beat

I could not come
to her funeral
or rather chose not to because of
previous poetry commitments
figured a fat check for a friend's
trust fund could fix
any funeral slights

next day funeral plans
did not enter into conversations
with my therapist

in the evening
focused on poetry
I read while her funeral rites
were wilting in the air

mumbled explanations of a beleaguered
NBA basketball player I'd seen in person
sharing his highs and lows

couldn't bring myself
to share my feelings

when the host
prattled on about her love of zombies
the delights of death
another told of his father's return home from Hawaiian paradise
to spend his terminal time here

a husband read a poem about his wife from his black pocket notebook
a woman spoke of losing language to lose herself in her lover
language has left me

playing hookey from mental health volunteer work
where I hide my diagnosis
alone in the basement
creating a database for employment contacts
gaining knowledge of Access as I go
so I can write this poem

how could I fix anything
for a woman who's heart was huge
but could not hold her heart

I have fantasies that hard up poets
could pull on heart strings
linked to minds
to open up purse strings
so her daughter could be provided
an education in trust
for the memory of her mother
both a teacher and bipolar
two states common among us
to resolve a death from common causes
cauterized connections from
hope heart failure

Poems
©polarpaul 2006