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Family Portrait
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Daily Deviation
Daily Deviation
July 3, 2003
Family Portrait by wernstrum
Wernstrum's poem, Family Portrait, is a great poem. Quite touching a touching piece, I'd have to say. The diction is great as well. The imagery is excellent! Lines that stood out to me were...
what can make a person hold a past so deep
that when loved ones jostle her gate
tears and whimpers tighten
a lock in adoration?
guest picker- ~insanity1020 (Selected by ^keen)
Wernstrum's poem, Family Portrait, is a great poem. Quite touching a touching piece, I'd have to say. The diction is great as well. The imagery is excellent! Lines that stood out to me were...
what can make a person hold a past so deep
that when loved ones jostle her gate
tears and whimpers tighten
a lock in adoration?
guest picker- ~insanity1020 (Selected by ^keen)
Featured by keen
Literature Text
.
Family Portrait
"A-Polish-e-Dripke"
- The Polish are dirty
He remembers leather expressions
clockwise motions
plowing fleshy dirt,
prejudice concocted cannibals'
monotonous grunts
gapped by infinite mute akin
to a lack of finch birds -
tiny creatures of song,
migrating to mate in warmer fields
while a community is mated with soil.
He remembers "running, running"
with his father on foot
day and night,
on foot from home in Poland
to Russia where, refugees
they joined an infantry and fought,
his father fell.
He can't remember his mother's name,
his sister "was, was... Meydaleh".
He can't remember her face.
At the airport four of us sit
and momma is crying with Bobba
while my grandfather,
surrendered to senility, stares straight,
brown vile bubbles at his lips
and I transcribe them to paper.
Sometimes I wonder about Bobba-
what can make a person hold a past so deep
that when loved ones jostle her gate
tears and whimpers tighten
a lock in adoration?
Heir to nothing
her epitaph will be
of a language unmeant for decipher.
.
Family Portrait
"A-Polish-e-Dripke"
- The Polish are dirty
He remembers leather expressions
clockwise motions
plowing fleshy dirt,
prejudice concocted cannibals'
monotonous grunts
gapped by infinite mute akin
to a lack of finch birds -
tiny creatures of song,
migrating to mate in warmer fields
while a community is mated with soil.
He remembers "running, running"
with his father on foot
day and night,
on foot from home in Poland
to Russia where, refugees
they joined an infantry and fought,
his father fell.
He can't remember his mother's name,
his sister "was, was... Meydaleh".
He can't remember her face.
At the airport four of us sit
and momma is crying with Bobba
while my grandfather,
surrendered to senility, stares straight,
brown vile bubbles at his lips
and I transcribe them to paper.
Sometimes I wonder about Bobba-
what can make a person hold a past so deep
that when loved ones jostle her gate
tears and whimpers tighten
a lock in adoration?
Heir to nothing
her epitaph will be
of a language unmeant for decipher.
.
Suggested Collections
This poem has been carefully thought out. I've tried to make it easy on the eyes.
Some terms:
Bobba - Russian for "Grandmother" or Nanna
Momma - Russian for "Mother" or Mum
The first phrase is in Polish.
I wrote this poem based on notes I took, and I lost those notes, so it was remnants of remnants. The name Ingaleh (in this piece) is sort of remembered/made up. I can't totally remember the actual name. Which just goes to show how atrocities blend into nothingness over time. People suffer so much and at the end it is absolutely worthless. I would send this to my Bobba but I want to let her live her remaining years in piece.
Reworked: added some more punctuation.
Some terms:
Bobba - Russian for "Grandmother" or Nanna
Momma - Russian for "Mother" or Mum
The first phrase is in Polish.
I wrote this poem based on notes I took, and I lost those notes, so it was remnants of remnants. The name Ingaleh (in this piece) is sort of remembered/made up. I can't totally remember the actual name. Which just goes to show how atrocities blend into nothingness over time. People suffer so much and at the end it is absolutely worthless. I would send this to my Bobba but I want to let her live her remaining years in piece.
Reworked: added some more punctuation.
© 2003 - 2024 wernstrum
Comments60
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There are many so many bits to like in this...so this comment will be bitty I'm afraid. The last lines, funnily, in every stanza I loved. The community being mated with soil - great phrase, and so true, the lives, strife, and future of the people all depending on their crops and work. I loved the contrast with the carefree mating of the birds. his father fell ... i can't remember her face - liked these lines, short, succinct, puts across a lot of emotion in the stark simplicity of them. And another one, "surrendered to senility" - I like the link with the war earlier, and also how the illness of old age is described, so much like a battle finally lost...
what can make a person hold a past so deep
that when loved ones jostle her gate
tears and whimpers tighten
a lock in adoration?
I liked the analogy - but the only thing I didn't much like was the rhetoric - it seemed a little out of place with the rest of the poem IMO. The final end of the poem is fantastic, good way of putting it. You're very insightful - especially about human behavior - and it comes across strongly in this. Your Bobba would certainly be proud
what can make a person hold a past so deep
that when loved ones jostle her gate
tears and whimpers tighten
a lock in adoration?
I liked the analogy - but the only thing I didn't much like was the rhetoric - it seemed a little out of place with the rest of the poem IMO. The final end of the poem is fantastic, good way of putting it. You're very insightful - especially about human behavior - and it comes across strongly in this. Your Bobba would certainly be proud