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C.N.P Poetry 

Writer's pictureCathexis Northwest Press

Bye Gone Brothers

By: Roger Iverson


I haven’t been to the Ocean Crest Resort

since I bought rounds for former brothers-in-law.


We sat in summer’s sun on the deck among tree tops

and watched the ocean run and maybe we ate

seafood but I know I bought beers

and scotch for my brothers up there. It was

my calling. I can’t go back, I

no longer hold claim to our land our


homes we built together. Dreams dissolved, I pile

and pack on me alone all blame. Had I strength

I would leave myself, I told her and god

I’ve tried. Sister is finished. Grief

of family’s life death continues to wash me over

in flagrant detail. Dear Brothers press


your wife to your core. Prove

you daily adore her. Steer

from my grief: her leaving, parents

retreating, fading nephews and niece, sisters and brothers,

my family who enveloped and coaxed

my healthiest parts to laughter and song

- now untouchable.


Funeral deprived I long

to stop crashing through floors to

simply resolve into a dew. I wallow

in hollow solitude with nothing and no one, condemned


to remember I once had a calling

and brothers I knew




 

Roger tried.


Mr. Iverson has written uncountable poems, scores of short fiction, a dozen plays, three of which have repeatedly seen the light of stage. He had also written three blindingly boring screenplays.

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