How Is This Just another Ending?
Blanketed grimly beneath a damp warmth
The photograph was held
Between the trembling hands
Of the grieved father with a loss
That dug farthest to heart
And made the faces in that picture
Haunt even his thoughts
So quickly
Their book closed
Another volume to
The stack that always grows
But
Father shook their empty cradles
Still laid their clothes out each night
And prayed for just one last glimpse
Of their sweet syrup grins
Who then whispered and chanted ‘how’
When their deaths bombed his world
“How was it just another ending?”
Dreadfully the charcoal mascara bled
Like a raging river
Along the overheated
Cheeks of the whimpering teen
Who’d greeted no
Reason for her so bland existence
In a mean world
Giving up
Her book closed
Another volume to
The stack that always grows
But
Nobody smiled at her absence
Nor filled her now empty room
Yet they mourned the teen’s farewell
And some wished they’d said hi
To the broken heart not mended
That screamed within all ears
“How was this just another ending?”
~ Can you imagine this poem as the lyrics to a jazz song? Perhaps some slow, deep, dark jazz?
| 
Email this Poetry
| 
Add to reading list
