Rainbow Sherbet and Dying Poems
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I never got why you always
Ate the red pink color out
The Sherbet ice cream
It was like excavation
How you removed all the cherry
Without even affecting the other colors
Leaving the orange and the vanilla
Neatly for others
Who does that?
Being a poet I used to think that one day
That could be a metaphor in some poem
Which would take the younger half of my life
To give it reason
Now watching you sleep during your chemo
Puts my every coping skill to test
Cause I could really use a hug
Or even one of your corny colloquialisms
Four years of Advanced English and
I had to ask a surgeon what he meant
By two days to live
I asked him that six times
Watching the beeping machines
Playing pinball with your
diaastolic & Systolic
I hope I pronounced it right
You are the one who always mispronounced
Turning my head while the nurse
Changes your diaper hurts in the worst way
Five years ago I watched you
Put a diaper on sideways
July will be his sixth birthday
And though you are on that stupid respirator Thing
I slipped headphones on your head
Noticing your eyebrows moving
Only Prince could make your eyebrows
Dance in such a rhythm
So I knew you were listening
Sorry I purposely didn’t have any Bowie
Remembering your face when you got a low C
on an exam intentionally
Just so i could get a high D
You did more work on my term paper
Than I ever could
Last night I went down to that little
Hospital aquarium thing
where they have the tiny waterfalls and plants
and danced barefoot in the tiny ponds
Like it was Malibu or Santa Monica
It took two security guards to talk me out
I refused their five finger therapy test
You would have laughed
I just couldn’t watch the last minutes
Of your life
Not even the last seconds
I would have said something to God
That would have gotten me
Ex communicated from every
Religion
Neither God nor Jesus has an answer
Why 30 year old mothers
need to die with cancer
I blame your father for your mother's
Wrinkles and Silver hair-
No way was she oblivious
To his multiple affairs
And watching those stupid heart lines
reverberate
from Elvis
To Como to John Denver
From James Brown to a silent Sonata
Some guidance counselor Chaplin person
came in
Asked if I needed to talk to someone
I said, Only if they are on a wine bottle
I know I was abrasively rude
And I know your moans and groans
We're really just encrypted signals
Telling me you remembered
my three month marriage
The volleyball season lasted longer
I Spent an entire week with you
And never once did you say
You knew he was a loser
But he was...
A day later we were Laughing…
Over Sherbet Ice cream
The Doctor said it could be
All be over in minutes
So I guess I leave my final respects
I promise
Your children will never know neglect
I exited the elevator
From the halls hearing crying
Your family covering you like an umbrella
Now I get the metaphor
Of you eating the pink
Out the rainbow sherbet
Leaving us the Orange & Vanilla
Michael Ellis 2021
Copyright © Michael Ellis | Year Posted 2021
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