No Fond Farewell

Gold cherry
Poem of the week

By Ewan

Thu, 05 Oct 2023
  • 2412 reads
16 comments
 

We mourners will peer through age’s disguise
at each others’ faces, traces of the wild boys
and girls we once were may appear,
long enough for recognition.
Smiles will start, slip sideways
into seriousness and frowns.

Best behaviour,
differences forgotten,
"rotten luck, oh how sad":
bad reflections of how
we really feel.

For he and I were not the best of friends,
though for fifteen years we had
the best of enmities,
the grudging respect
of the stubborn for each other,
brothers in arms-folding
tutting and rolling our eyes
at one another.

Because we saw each other
in a cracked mirror of resentment
and different passions,
but for our very selves,
we could have been each other.

I’ll say goodbye to all that, today.
                                   

Certificate PG
Poem
Not Quite Good Enough
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by marandina on

"Because we saw each other

in a cracked mirror of resentment.."

 

An honest reflection almost rueful. Hope today goes as well as these things can. Paul 

 

Submitted by Ewan on

  It went very well, a turnout of around 300. As I hope you guessed, he was an interesting man.

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

Sombre times - I also hope it goes well Ewan.

 

Submitted by Ewan on

  We are of an age now when such things are not so rare.

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by celticman on

yeh, that's about it. funerals are when we catch glimpses of othes and our previous. 

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

People who rile us the most can be missed in ways we never expected. 'a cracked mirror of resentment', grinding words which epitomise loss and confusion.

 

Submitted by Ewan on

  for reading and your insightful comment.
E x

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

So many people we know so little about, and they us.

the grudging respect
of the stubborn for each other

is a telling phrase. Annoyances as so often very superficial really. And a funeral gives a bird's eye-view on the years. Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Ewan on

your kind comment.

E x

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by airyfairy on

'Age's disguise...' is a brilliant way of putting it. I often find now that the face I'm looking at is the one from decades ago, not the one actually there. You capture those contradictory funeral feelings so well.

Submitted by airyfairy on

This is our Facebook and Twitter Pick of the Day. Please do share/retweet if you enjoy it too.

Submitted by Turlough on

I'm glad to have got this far. I can't be bothered with the niggling resentment anymore.

So I'll give anybody a crack at being a friend... no matter what's gone before... if they'll have me. 

Turlough

Submitted by Ewan on

 in this case, obviously. It was only after I'd been out of the RAF for 10 years that I realised it was the similarities which caused the friction. Wish I'd been in time to tell him that - and he would, most definitely, have told me to f*ck off - and it really would have been alright. Really glad I went to see him off, a big influence on me, for good or ill. Maybe he knows that, who can say?

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by airyfairy on

This is also our Poem of the Week. Congratulations!

Submitted by Di_Hard on

It is as though at the end you say goodbye to part of yourself.

 

Submitted by Kris on

1 of these = yes

I can live in the moment there.... you captured it*