Papaw was born in 1910 on the first of May.
He died a quarter of a century ago today.
After living a long life, he died at the age of 87.
Almost ten years ago, Mom joined him in Heaven.
He had six kids but the youngest didn't survive.
He was my grandfather while he was alive.
On February the 7th of 1998, it was Papaw's time to die.
He was my grandpa and it was sad when I said goodbye.

old bayonet--
I wonder if one touched
my grandfather's body

I rest, as once more
my legs are crossed upon the floor;
the old armchair not looms but graces
the room, and our two listening faces.

Conversation leads the wane,
the world waxes, yet I remain,
the armchair not yet old but so;
solemn comes and solemn goes.

But long since years have passed me by,
nineteen there, twenty nigh,
and still the armchair's yet to fade;
in grace and hope, and heart pervade.

And silent sit I lend my ear
to stories told first time this year,
of decades past and my existence
just a spark, universal resistance.

Generations part the seas
like Moses, only I believe
in stories told from familiar tongues,
not sung, and yet exist in song.

The armchair rests in praise and strength,
the day shall pass, familiar length;
and that familiar person there
much to rely, and all to share.

In trust, in grace, in hearted love,
and stories from which I will carve
a narrative in which I fit;
one day this armchair, I shall sit.

Banti (ban-tee)
Such a odd name
But the name I called him
Him.
My beloved grandfather
The man who pushed me to do my best but without the pressure
The man who was always there
The man who put family above anything else
The man who was the easiest person to talk to
My grandfather
Gone.
Leaving behind the people who needed him
Leaving behind his family
Leaving behind the pain that he had to push through
Selfish.
Selfish is what I am
He was in pain and sick
He had  a whistle because he couldn't get up
This whistle is all I have left
He made his mark
A great mark
A mark that will forever stay with everyone that knew him
A mark that left his dog depressed for days without eating
A mark that left many crying for days
Gone.
Whistle.
Mark.
Keywords that tell his story in my words.
His story.
My words.
Banti
My grandfather…..
“He loved his family above all else.”  (quote from his obituary)

“Keep your nose clean”

His intent was momentous.
An ant like phrase,
with mountainous exorcism.

“Keep your nose clean”,
His voice like Zeus,
thunderously subtle.

Echoing and vibrating,
through regret, sin,
and fueled debauchery.

This phrase kept me true,
on-course through,
dark seas.

A map to navigate,
knowing when,
to steer away.

“Keep your nose clean”
I hear him still,
his voice sobering.

“Yes, grandfather.”

“I will”

I’m in the dream again:                not the one I had while awake in
the catacombs of St. Callixtus in Rome.  Where the darkness was
so impenetrable that it began to echo.  To look like the mixture of colors
that burst when you rub your eyes too hard for too long.  Like the
neuron rupture before death.  To shape and morph and become liquid.
Where the darkness cobbled itself into a physical form.

Not the dream where                    I kept seeing
flits of my mother out of the corner of my eye.  Behind
                                                                ­                               every street corner.
                                                                ­                   Every turn.  Every tunnel.  
      Reflected in the casts of the bodies in Pompeii.
Mirrored in the waves of the Trevi Fountain.

I’m in the dream where          the soil churned from the bottom to the top.  
                               where          the hand outstretched from the grave.  
                               where          my grandfather clawed his way out and returned to my grandmother﹘sopping wet, covered in thick mud, socks torn, skin sallow and jaundiced, spitting out the wire the embalmers put in his mouth, melting makeup, and ravenously hungry.  And it’s been so
                                                                ­                   long since he was hungry.  

“He came back to me, Taylor,” my grandmother tells me. 
“He came back to me.”
                                        I don’t have the heart to tell her that he’s undead.  
                                        I’m physically unable to spit out those words.
And it’s a dream and it’s a dream and it’s a dream,                   but
it just fits so perfectly.  That he would come back to her.  
That death would not be a barrier.  I can’t explain it.                It just is.  
My grandmother is a shell without him.  
The body that’s missing the limb.  
The body that keeps score.