Dreaming Of Johnny Cash

Ronald- father- Wherever thou art
why are you still appearing in my dreams?
you’ve been dead now for more than fifteen years!

I remember that last time I saw you- at Kentville Hospital
hot-wired to an oxygen bag- you gasping for each breath
you wanted it all to end  but they kept re-reviving you
inserting a catheter - you reliving your death several times

I followed your medical career frequently in letters, e-mails
or in urgent phone calls from sisters
from another continent
and they’d perform yet another emergency tracheostomy
to get you breathing again-
your lungs choked from years of smoking
& foundry work

*

We had a reunion of sorts
back in Aylesford in the family home
just before you died-
you hooked up to the oxygen machine
us 30 something kids upstairs
playing, not so cynically this time, your
Johnny Horton and Johnny Cash records

Later in the night
I went down to the toilet
& asked if you were OK
you gesturing in a hyperbolic manner
to turn off the outside lights

*

I’m sorry dad
I switched off the double adaptor
attached to your oxygen machine
it was an accident- honest
I can imagine you sputtering
getting up in the dark
cursing,
flicking
the machine back on

*
The other night
I dreamt you were living with me in Oz
you sat at the table
reading the stock market reports as usual
& drinking a bottle of Fosters-
I’d just returned from the beach
I asked you whether you had heard Johnny Cash’s
Folsom Prison Blues was finally out on CD
You said: ‘I know, I saw it lying on the coffee table
but I couldn’t get the thing to work’

As I struggled to buckle up my pants around my upper chest
in an awakening dream
I realised you were dead

The Failure of Language 2

This self imposed exile
this moratorium
         of sorts
  is nearing its (abstract noun)
    of (adjective/ noun)

this decade’s (past participle) forfeiture,
this (adjective) of language-
      of feeling
of linking words to meaning
is (auxiliary verb) (adverb)

This curious entropy-
          this seeping backlog of memories
   of this carefully constructed world
         of words
upon (nouns)

& then there is the (common noun)-
the silken smooth
  white hot
       flush  of
(syllables)
                 dissembling,
whirling
       (simile) blackened wings
above this
                 (symbolic) page