Filler Poem: Final Call

Things are crazy with me right now, so here's a poem from my archives to keep the blog ticking over. I wrote it in 2005, which was a bad year.

It's a sad poem, so sad I've rarely re-read it. It wasn't expressing an actual experience. I wrote a lot of poems back then which were my attempts to imaginatively project myself into other peoples' situations. I now regard this as a mistake. Others can do it. I can't.

I honestly don't know if there's any value to straightforwardly sad poems such as this one. I never listen to "She's Leaving Home" or "Eleanor Rigby" because they're just too sad. If poetry and art doesn't uplift and encourage, I don't see any point to it. I'm a melancholic by temperament, and an optimist by philosophy.

On a technical note, I'm proud of the short line in the middle stanza.

The hardest thing to bear of all
Was her father making plans
On the morning of her final call.
The whirring of those fans
The shadow of the last brick wall, 

The doctors, and the scans,

Were little things compared to this;
An old man’s childish smile
And eyes alive with the hope of bliss
In a little while.
The see-you-tomorrow in his kiss
So innocent of her guile.

He wouldn’t want to know. But still
Those eyes watch her all night.
His voice repeats we will, we will
His eyes fill with delight
Seeing the world just past the hill
Where things will all come right.