Robert

by Larry Chamberlin   Mar 8, 2016


Friend, whose face
has not filled my eyes
in my last three lives,
my memories of you
are like broken pushpins
stuck on an old map:
they have been there so long
it does not seem right
to remove them,
yet they no longer serve
the purpose for which
they were placed.

We pledged ourselves
to challenge death itself
to protect the treasure chart
that would lead us back
to that buried chest
of golden sunsets
and camaraderie.

Now the atlas
of our youthful dedication
hangs on the side
of my bookshelves
decorating memorabilia
commemorating little more
than the fragility of human
expectations.

    report violation
7


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Latest Comments

  • 8 years ago

    by Meena Krish

    I take it this is about a childhood friend who has been with you through thick and thin and somewhere along the line that friendship had an abrupt end...perhaps?

    Friend, whose face
    has not filled my eyes
    in my last three lives,

    ^^To me this suggests that its about a childhood friend whom you lost at a young age because the words "whose face has not filled my eyes..."

    my memories of you
    are like broken pushpins
    stuck on an old map:

    ^^This is so vivid! I can see the pushpins with old photographs of places and moments and with time those pictures too have aged yet their memories are still fresh in your mind.

    The second stanza though shorter then the first speaks of a story which was to happen but never did happen. You have told in such few sentences it grabs my attention and at the same time a picture of a pair of dare devil boys who were not afraid to face anything stands out.

    The ending is touching it leaves me with an image of that book shelf and that lost memoirs dangling reminding about youth, its journey and that inevitable end which we humans have to face.

    Nicely penned Sir, feels like I've been reading a chapter from a story.

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