my father has threatened his silence
for I cannot be trusted
each time he speaks     he says     there is a chance
I will take him at more than face value and elevate
his memories into verse-sagas and tales
when he reads what I've written he feels somehow displaced
by a man concocted from fiction     penned in his first person
it is a strange way to revisit the past
and it makes him uncomfortable

he is smiling when he says it
so perhaps he is joking
but there is an edge to the sound of his laughter
he has repeated himself     it is three times now
and he looks at me uncertainly
as though he's no longer sure
of just who I am or why
this long ago history is worthy of writing
when the stories are only of every day poverty
and not so exciting
to those that lived through them at the time
so why would I bother with that after all of these years

but my mother says that I should ignore him
write whatever I want to and there is plenty of wall space
so one more framed poem will not be too many
and whatever it is I believe I am doing
while they don't understand it at all
she is sure it is worthy of good faith and pride

~

Frank


The Tales of Faust poetry page can be found at:
http://www.hotkey.net.au/~flp/F_index.htm


_________________________________________________________________
Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail.
http://www.hotmail.com