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Anger and Rage I spent 22 years with a man whose anger raged like a mountain storm shushed before it had spent its message, before it had spewed its last condemnation I knew years of healing were in store and would not be enough. Now, I think in terms of generations, fourth and fifth, a long, long time. Then, I run across an old photograph It is of his grandfather and grandmother, revered in the family a single second in time when anger and rage and dissatisfaction and a partner’s look, caught, like a fly in the trap of a large spider Are there, for all eternity. I pity the images, caught with their hands in the cookie jar. I pity their seed, spewed and passed down with the anger and rage predominate in their pathetic lives, their valueless values The family they spawned is arrogant with the heady wine of their ancestry clean people, cleaning house and barns everyday, schooling of little importance just be clean. When visitors come to your house, it must be the cleanest, Yes. Any room for poetry or religion? Only if the house is cleaned first. What about the sons? Ah, they have turned to the only sensible alternative: alcohol. Yes, let the women clean—that keeps us respectable. We have our alcohol, so good, so sweet. Grandma and Grandpa did not partake. No, mormons they were—-except for Grandma’s little stash in the medicine cabinet. Who knows how much was there. It was medicinal, and helped the memories of rage blow away with the night wind Down to the fourth and fifth generations, I have seen the rage and the alcohol kill I don’t know where the rage sprang from, except it was strong and it controlled lives The alcohol? I know where it comes from and it is a friend—-easy to figure out It has saved me more than once, but the rage still manifests to me at uncomfortable times with its devil look and its boots-on-the-ground misery, and though all of the above folks are gone, still I wonder: who is rage and where did it come from and… Is it my fault…? |
This Poem was Critiqued By: Tony P Spicuglia On Date: 2015-01-22 21:15:38
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Marcia, I don’t know much about the answers, ‘cept the last question- that answer is almost always no. The story, the amazing story- once again something you should write a short story of, and a screenplay for.
I’d like to say the rage is unique. It is not. I’d like to say I know nothing of alcholhol, either it’s inducements, or its medicinal affect on the spirit, but that would be a lie.
I’d like to say I find the clean, or the lack of approved education, or even the undervaluing of poetry and reading, and the arts, as something I understand (even if I did understand it from a generational response), but I won’t.
Rage is a strange thing. It hides behind a smile or rides a storm cloud.
What a story you have shared!