A Mirror Floating in Water

This is one of my most personal works. For it is about a conversation a had with my Dad (whom I had practically never known my whole life) when I was about fifeteen and it brought about a huge epiphany. It begins with a unbearable stroke of apathy, for which the narrator is then reconciled by his father.

I didn't include quotes, I don't know why, they just looked ugly. Sorry for the confusion.

It's almost embaressing posting this, for I know that it is a bit overdone, but it is so personally powerful to me, I can't leave it behind.


Time was such of dark of darkest nights they where
In which time and memory faded and glowed
With the heartbeat and flow of the spring river
And there in space and memory and time
To sit and speak of things
Gone from long ages of long past

As fate built up and thought broke down
Nothingness was that which preceded
The time of the conversation
As such things happened within the blank slate of thought
Surrounding the deadly, ceasing flow of time
And halting of thought and action

So sit there if you must
Sit there for an hour or two or four or five
Until all time and life is drained
Sit there
Thought not, that was
Though done out, it did
For nothing had preceded and caused nothing
Continuing at the same place, the same time
As it sat still, motionless with the body
Dead it was, or so it seemed
For no matter how hard I tried, it did not move
Even though I did not think to try

Day had passed, night had drained
And it had dried onto the sky
Sat there it did, the body, the dead
In silence and morbidity

The dead got up one day, one hour
So that it could experiment with motion
But no longer had science possessed its art
And the dead body sat back down
Waiting to be buried by heavy air

Was it a deer in the headlights?
Waiting to be hit
Was it frozen, motionless?
From the cause of prediction, of expectation
Though dead it was, though not hit
For there it sat, stillness suffocating it

The room was dark, darkest night it was
The sofa sat with the deceased upon it
Stretched out, embroiled across the table
With nails sticking out of feet and hands

Air of nails and slippery saliva drooled
Out from under the cave of mouth and lips
All motion lay still, all atoms ceased juggling and bouncing
All was still, as the river began to melt

Nothing to say, nothing to do
When one is dead, nothing is to be done
Time has passed and forgotten
Thought has leapt and fallen
Silver water has fallen between fingers, and sizzled into smoky vapor

Nothing exists, except the dead and motionless time
In space and memory
Nothing speaks, except the soft sounds of silence
Nothing forms, except the thick heavy air, burdened upon me

The sky was black and dark as I remember it,
The sky was blank with nothing in its scope,
The stars no longer shined and no longer were,
I can remember the night and how it looked,
The night, when all time had stopped and that figure, that stranger had stepped in
Strange, for I did not even hear the stamping upon the wooden steps
Feet stampeding
For I did not even hear him approach

Things seemed to speak once more, whilst nothingness began to grow and persist
Tragedy it was, for concern and care grew with every moment inside the old stranger’s heart
But nothing was to be realized, nothing to be said

A few attempts were made
To say something, make something happen
To get the dead body to wake and move
But the corpse was a corpse, fading
And nothing was to be done
Nothing to be said

But we must rebuke this item!
Such thoughts thought inside his head
And there and there, he said and said:
“Did you know, did you know
That the ships in the Pacific flow
Did you know, did you know
That I saw plenty, to say and so”
So thus spoke the sailor, the stranger:
“Time has been good to me
But I have seen more than time knows
I have sat through nights
So tired
In which the very second my weary head
Had fallen off and hit my bed
I was out
While all above on deck, where out and about

I heard the noise, the first couple of nights
The caffeine could not help
And so I sat, down and out

And as I sat, asleep, sometimes awake
On the top bunk
It was a heap
I could hear, up above, they were up above
My head was right under their feet
Between us was thick heavy metal
And I was in my bunk and they were up above, out at sea

Slowly, to my hearing, I heard a loud plane
I could hear the sneering, the propelling of the sound and wane
It was coming, it would pass over my head
The screeching was at first, soft and quiet and quiet and soft
And then it came, and then it came
The noise grew and grew
The terror within me knew, it knew
How does it seem, when a missile sounds
Like it is coming at you
And so the monster groaned and growled
The deformity coming, coming with as such, anew
The ground began to shake and the metal rumbled
Machinery came to life and industrial steel began to kill
How helpless, this body is
In the face of our domestic tanks, egregious in drive and machine
It came it came it came
Wheels turning turning turning
Screeching growing screaming
Nails nails nails biting metal
Shingling in frozen time
In the second that lasted for eternity
In the fury which pitched in pause
No music and rhythm
Just indifferent grumbling, sometimes mumbling
With no music and rhythm, just one word, one sound, said over and over
With loud clear screeching
Ending, never ending,
Approaching with great speed, speed speed speed speed speed, speed!
Bllsssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiig ghhhhhhhhhiiiiillllllllllllllllllllllllssshhhhhhhh hoooooooouu-uuuuuuuuuuuowwwwwwwwweeeeeeeieeeeeeeee
Ears deaf, tone ringing
Nothing but stinging nausea, red sand covering over eyes and ears

But soon and so
The sound ceased its nauseas flow
As day went by day went
I eventually forgot the it whole
And sleep drifted me away”

So the tired mid-aged sailor told his tired story
And continued in darkness and in glory:

“Once on deck
The plane’s motor and I were close, neck-to-neck
I could’ve, then and there, fallen into darkness
But then I stepped back and saw what was starkest

I have been close to death, face to face
Unknowingly so, if so
I have seen the dust of the sandy deserts and beaches
I have lived through the lonely nights on sea and voyage
I have seen the tragedy of the human being

One time out in the south Pacific
We sped and flew in planes anew
How they traveled through the skies, whizzing through the obscure clouds
I saw something sad one time, one day
That day the planes and pilots where landing on deck, at orders
One fate-bending engine blew
How the heartbreaking helpless voice blurred out the news
He had to land or else him and his Bettie would sink to the bottom blues
The mighty captain decided and ordered well;
That he was to land at such an angle and speed in order to avoid hell
Well he did as was said, his voice with hope, I heard
He landed his speeding wheels where the ship began
And sped off of its end, never to be seen again”

And such as it was, and such was how it was said
The old sailor had reaccounted, out from his head
And as he sat there with a glimmer in his eyes
The young man listened, beginning to understand why
And so the father of a son and a daughter spoke and said:

“You know, the conflict did continue
We and me, had only a few years of happiness together
I was out at sea and she was with the two of you
I felt alone and never had really seen you
The seas could all but repeat your names,
The salt sizzling, the waves splashing, repeating your name

We never understood each other, your mother and me
We were a glove that didn’t fit, and never fit, did we
A contradiction can be attempted
To live with
But once children live too, it is impossible
And so I figured that one virtue was better than two vices
And so I left, hoping that with the contrary gone, we would have solved the crisis”

He spoke and spoke with true sincerity of scars from years past and years gone
And I, the young man told him of how
Me, Mom and sis, had sat on the beach, thinking of what to do now
‘Papa bird has flown away’, she had once said
And we must begin a new beginning and go first to grandmothers, in order to get well and ready
For life, alone and without daddy

“How I supported you three for so many years”, the father said:
“Most of my paycheck, gone, went to the family that I had left
I still loved and cared
My hands and heart just couldn’t reach across the vast seas to find you
Yes, later on we were buddies, we were pals
But how I wished something could’ve happened that was more
Don’t you see, that is what I am here for?”

And there and then, the dead had arisen and been reborn
A barrier had been broken and the vast sea could be seen at last
And there and then, the stranger, the sailor, the friend, the father
Sat with his son and spoke through the mystic night, and into the morning,
As the sun arose from the deep dark trenches of the night