Thursday, January 11, 2024

Father and Son

met my father
once

ran into him 
by chance
at a funeral

we shook hands
beside a coffin

he spoke seven words

I wrote them that night 
in a black book

7 comments:

  1. Wow, Ollie. Seven words in one lifetime. This poem tells a big story in few lines. It is wonderful that your own fathering has been the extreme opposite of his.

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  2. Oh, Ollie, this is heartbreaking! Seven words only. What a tragedy. Thank you for sharing with such honesty.

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  3. Oh! So heartbreaking! Words like funeral, coffin, black book speak of a painful time.

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  4. I enjoy the mystery in this heartbreaking poem. It keeps the entire poem and the image of the space by a coffin zinging in my head.

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  5. Sometimes only a WOW! will suffice trite as that hopefully does not sound... I must add a WOW here... fantastic poem a gut punch of exquisite feeling

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  6. Hey Ollie, this reminds me of my Dad, he never knew his father. He told me how he had tracked him down once and found him at work. He could have talked to him but chose not to. He then spent the last 20 years on ancestry.com tracing distant relatives and even meeting some. I don't know why but it makes him content. Your poem is very powerful.

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