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DieterM
06-25-2014, 11:05 AM
You taught us that
it’s our fault,
all our fault.
Your failure, your frustration;
that your unloved parents
didn’t love you in return;
the sadness and unhappiness,
the utter worthlessness in History
of our whole family tree:
you blamed it on us.

You could have stopped
the vicious circle, but no.
You turned the wheel.
No fortune wheel, no lucky wheel.
The wheel of what has been
and is and will be,
the wheel of things repeated.
Pandora’s Box—you saw
the warning signs,
and knowingly
you opened it.
Yes, willingly and hungrily.
Your own sorry experience,
you passed it on
like a disease
the way your parents did.

They told you: marry,
get a house, two children,
and you’ll see how
everything will flow
in long and gentle waves,
a summer river,
unruffled, eddies kept at bay.

You knew they lied.
But spitefully, you did
as you were told.

You never needed us,
you never wanted us,
you never loved us.
You raised us as
pale ghosts of your
measly dreams,
your inessential hopes,
cutting away our angel wings
so that we could never
fly away from you,
your little lives,
your pettiness.

Since birth, we’ve been
looking at you
with dog eyes, wagging tails,
yapping and whining
begging for love.
You were too busy
making us miserable
to notice.

My God, mother!
My God, father!
What the bloody hell
were you thinking?

But now we rise
to our revenge,
our liberation!
We’ve had our tubes tied
long ago.
We’ve met up with
a Serbian smuggler
down in Skopje,
and we’ve struck a deal.
And now we line you up
against the wall
in your own back yard,
pull the triggers,
blow your heads,
and RA-TA-TA-TA-TA,
our Kalachnikovs rejoice!

Oh glorious gore!
Oh liberty!
Blood-spattered,
we put fire to
your house,
explode your car,
bludgeon to death
your dogs and cats
simply because
you loved them.

We feel free at last,
and yet…
Somehow we know,
somehow,
that even henceforth,
you’ll succeed
in making us feel
guilty.

virtuoso
06-25-2014, 11:50 AM
Wow, you've gone prenatal, postnatal, and then POSTAL! This poem drips with derision. Tell me that this is from practical observation, and not from your own, jaded background.

DieterM
06-25-2014, 11:56 AM
Uhm, virtuoso, ty, and fortunately my mom, whom I dearly love and who loves me just as much (even sometimes too much) doesn't speak English because she would be very miffed by these lines. No, it's not my own background, but observation, yes. France is a good playground for such practical socialogical studies.

AuntShecky
06-25-2014, 04:16 PM
Well, this one's pretty honest. In the tradition of Sylvia Plath's stuff, as well as the Philip Larkin poem "This Be the Verse" with the notorious opening line "They (expletive deleted) You Up, Your Mom and Dad." I love the humor in that one, as well as the prose piece about guilt-inducing ma: Dan Greenberg's "How to Be a Jewish Mother."