Flower-print Wallpaper
Flower-print Wallpaper
by Michael Estabrook
Today after spending the morning
walking around the zoo
with our granddaughter
I needed a nap when we got back to Dave’s.
But this time I didn’t reflect back
on my Dad like I usually do when I take naps.
(When he was dying of stomach cancer
frequently he’d take naps
in the afternoon so to this day
I associate afternoon naps with my father’s death.)
Instead, today my father’s brother popped
into my mind: when he got older
his bum knee began acting up too often
and he couldn’t stand it anymore
so one evening he drank half a bottle of Scotch,
took the end of his shotgun barrel
in his mouth and blew his blood and brains
all over Aunt Kay’s nice new
flower-print wallpaper.
I need to stop taking naps in the afternoon.
This is one of those poems that doesn’t contain a whole lot of craft, but nevertheless packs a huge punch thru straight-forward communication. The style is conversational/story-tellin’ with no need for rhyme, alliteration, personification, abstract imagery, or the works–lots of poems nowadays are short story/letters/observations siphoned into poem structure by altering lines at key junctures. I have no problem with that. Poetry doesn’t have to be metered, measured, and slaved over with metaphoric masticisms–to define is to negate, they say.
In any case, i think we all can relate somewhat, right off the bat, with feelings associated with certain habits/actions. The poet expresses some very painful memories connected with naps here and gives us an insight to the bizarre and morbid tendencies of our minds with their ability to ‘attach’ and gravitate when left wandering. It’s a powerful image we are left with at the end of this piece–brains on flower wallpaper [very contrasting] and the sadness of melancholia setting in. …And it ties-in to title masterfully! Thx for sharing!