his youth snuffed out by someone’s mindless deed
this cannot be the horror fate intends
if life be want mine now I do concede
his youth snuffed out by someone’s mindless deed
if debt is owed please I will make amends
if life be want mine now I do concede
consuming grief upon my life descends
if debt is owed please I will make amends
anger fills me like a poison seed
consuming grief upon my life descends
my soul is crushed my heart begins to bleed
this anger fills me like a poison seed
god tell me, did I somehow offend
my soul is crushed, my heart begins to bleed
a blackness here within me does distend
god tell me please, did I somehow offend
this cannot be the horror you intend
this blackness here within me does distend
god this can’t be the way his story ends!
rob kistner © 1995
(revision © 2018)
This made me cry. I am so sorry that you had to experience the loss of your son. Thank you for sharing such a personal piece.
You are most welcome RW…! I shared this because I love and miss my son Aaron. But also, befitting to Jilly’s prompt, to explore just how powerful poems of form can be…
This entire post is truly beautiful; the prologue and the photo add power to the poem. The cries of the heart are so accurate to what we experience. Again, it is an honor that you share this with us and I am glad that the prompt sent you to the pen and paper.
Thank you Jilly – :-/)
I am sorry to hear about your son. Best wishes.
Thank you Frank, just re-exorcising some demons from the past, that try to haunt me at times.
i hear a parents anguish and attempt a bargain, to trade your for your son’s life. the frantic confusion and agonizing sorrow and trying to make sense of something without sense. Aaron smiling and happy one moment and gone the next
It was more horrifying and traumatic Jade than I can ever put into meaningful words, but I have healed, and sharing the memories and feelings from time to time, keeps me healed.
Rob… I spent a couple years working in home healthcare hospice. My name tag read: Charley Chaplain. I also held three old ladies’ hands as they traveled the path to death (my metaphor for a former vocation). When someone came to me with the pain of an unexpected death of a loved one, and the anger toward the god who took them away… I encouraged it. And I pointed them to examples of others who have screamed and cursed god before them. Your poem is a beautiful, deeply personal expression of pain. I celebrate it and thank you for sharing it.
Your welcome Charley, it does me good to share this experience occasionally, and better if its not someone in my close circle. I am able to be more open, and I don’t have to field to much too much “involved sympathy”. A simple expression is perfect, but people close to the situation begin sharing way beyond what I want. When someone responds with the opening salvo of “I understand how you feel” – I could scream! I prefer simple listening, with no or minimal feedback, absent engaging. Your response was perfect, and appreciated, thank you…
Any of us who has lost a child will understand the beauty and the pain of this poem. Thank you Rob
You re welcome Lona…
In grief I do think we do go into those repetitions… a spiral of thought maybe… sometimes it doesn’t get better until we snap out of the repetition.
It’s been yrars Bjorn, and it never gets better, just bearable by compartmentalizing, and at times, the most unexpected things, tske you right off the rails for a time…
Because it’s been on my mind, as I read this I thought about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre and all those innocent, mostly terribly young, lives lost because a deeply disturbed narcissist decided that he couldn’t stand humanity. Then I saw in the comments that it was about the loss of your son, and the love parents have for their children filled me to the brim. The form works very well for the thoughts that I imagine will circulate for at least a lifetime.
Why? Why him? Why not me?
Thank you for sharing this with us, Rob.
You are welcome Amaya. I can see the love you have for your child in the photos on your site. It is beautiful. The poem I shared here was a significant down-tempered edit from the original. The anger was like acid eating my mind and my soul. Now, enough time has passed that the profound anger at god has lessened a lot, so I felt keeping the orignal write private was prudent. The senseless unexpected death of a child, if it doesn’t kill you, it alters you forever. For me, it was in both negative and eventually even positive ways. My empathy has expanded 10 fold. But my patience, with anyone who would endager a child through stupidity, is little to none. If I saw a child’s welfare threatened, I would be in immediate, no-holds-barred, mortal warrior mode. I know that I could kill to protect a child. My mind goes red, even when I see a parent sternly disciplining their own child.