Your last days
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
when I think about your last days on
this planet of madness I am driven to a
depth deeper than I can fathom,
you had a stroke they said over the phone
three thousand miles away, they said you were
wild and uncontrollable--they had to put you
in restraints and fill you with sedatives,
I asked, "does he have his hearing aids? he's
deaf, you know?" they didn't know and
they didn't have your hearing aids or your glasses
or a compassionate heart to cause them to care or
understand,
I can see you defiant in your hopeless situation,
fighting and scratching for every moment to not
be denied your freedom,
all the years of being treated like a dummy without
a soul because you were deaf and practically blind,
you defied them at every turn,
you never took shit and never forgot and you fought
to prove yourself worthy of being respected,
you were a rough kid from a rough neighborhood
and you wore your leather jacket with your middle-finger to the air,
I remember the punches you took from the police
as they threw you to the ground in front of our mother
and beat you bloody for spitting at them,
though you were deaf you were not feeble and could throw
a Chicago-style fist into anyone standing, for an apology to mom
they left you bleeding in the yard, you took sixty stitches without a sound,
"tough little fuck," mom would say every time you came home
bloody from a fight the night before,
but they called from the hospital and said you died in the night.
no clues, no reason, just another poor bum from the trash-heap of society,
nothing really, just human waste to dispose of in a county incinerator,
you sit in a box now, next to one that holds our mother's ashes,
and I look at what's left of you and wonder where you are tonight,
I only know that you grappled for life and held it in a choke hold
till you ran out of breath,
I hope you're here, somewhere, watching me struggle and wrestle
my way through the shit, fighting and biting and kicking and screaming,
yelling and demanding attention from the dying and well-heeled,
I finally understand why, but don't haunt me--you fucker,
I got a bad heart.
this planet of madness I am driven to a
depth deeper than I can fathom,
you had a stroke they said over the phone
three thousand miles away, they said you were
wild and uncontrollable--they had to put you
in restraints and fill you with sedatives,
I asked, "does he have his hearing aids? he's
deaf, you know?" they didn't know and
they didn't have your hearing aids or your glasses
or a compassionate heart to cause them to care or
understand,
I can see you defiant in your hopeless situation,
fighting and scratching for every moment to not
be denied your freedom,
all the years of being treated like a dummy without
a soul because you were deaf and practically blind,
you defied them at every turn,
you never took shit and never forgot and you fought
to prove yourself worthy of being respected,
you were a rough kid from a rough neighborhood
and you wore your leather jacket with your middle-finger to the air,
I remember the punches you took from the police
as they threw you to the ground in front of our mother
and beat you bloody for spitting at them,
though you were deaf you were not feeble and could throw
a Chicago-style fist into anyone standing, for an apology to mom
they left you bleeding in the yard, you took sixty stitches without a sound,
"tough little fuck," mom would say every time you came home
bloody from a fight the night before,
but they called from the hospital and said you died in the night.
no clues, no reason, just another poor bum from the trash-heap of society,
nothing really, just human waste to dispose of in a county incinerator,
you sit in a box now, next to one that holds our mother's ashes,
and I look at what's left of you and wonder where you are tonight,
I only know that you grappled for life and held it in a choke hold
till you ran out of breath,
I hope you're here, somewhere, watching me struggle and wrestle
my way through the shit, fighting and biting and kicking and screaming,
yelling and demanding attention from the dying and well-heeled,
I finally understand why, but don't haunt me--you fucker,
I got a bad heart.