The first is expected.
She was old
with twig-like limbs.
A good woman
they will say
as they stand
in the stink
of funeral home flowers.
She outlived her husband,
raised four children,
and all the grandchildren
will play
in the back of the room
and wonder why Grandma
still sleeps.
The second is surprising,
but not a shock.
He was sick
for a long time.
His face turned grey
and shadows grew
as the disease
ate away,
feasting on bones
and marrow.
Grinning
as he grimaced in pain
and slept a morphine sleep.
His wife cries,
unsure how to live again
in a world
without low blood cell counts
and the smell
of chemical poison.
The phone rings
at 3:00 a.m.
to announce the third.
We are sorry,
very sorry,
a tangle of metal and flesh.
Staggering through
the sting of
antiseptic hallways
with untied shoes
and numb faces,
thinking maybe
it’s all a terrible mistake.
Crumbling to the tiled floor
with a frozen no
trapped inside
a silent scream.
Damien Walters Grintalis is a published poet and a writer of dark tales. Her short story, ‘The Depository’, will appear in the April 2010 issue of Bards and Sages Quarterly, and her poetry has appeared in Emerald Tales, The Rose & Thorn, Every Day Poets, and Baltimore’s City Paper.
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15 Responses to “THREE • by Damien Walters Grintalis”
Comments
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January 13th, 2010 at 2:18 am
How very sad.
Beautiful poem.
January 13th, 2010 at 6:54 am
Excellent! Feelings, fears & images well captured.
January 13th, 2010 at 8:39 am
This would have been good if there had been some indication as to who the third was, as in the first two strophes.
January 13th, 2010 at 10:01 am
fishlovesca – the final stanza – the antistrophe, is about someone very, very negative and also accident prone.
January 13th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
sad and evocative.
January 13th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
Good job, Damien!
January 14th, 2010 at 2:24 am
Nicely done.
January 14th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
To RSG — I read the poem, together with the title, as meaning death comes in threes, and the third strophe is certainly indicative of a third death. The first two deaths are fleshed out, but there is no indication of who the third death is, gender, age, relationship to the narrator, which makes the work inconsistent. Good poem, otherwise.
January 14th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
I kinda liked that the 3rd death is anonymous, as goes along with the 3-in-a-row thing and thought the tone carried it, maybe cause I liked the ‘voice’ developed in S1 & S2. Not disagreeing with fishlove who(has a good thing going on &) speakes the truth.
January 14th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Magdalen, I think we can infer that the truth is perhaps harsher, that this death is someone very close to the N, perhaps spouse, more likely child, killed in a car accident. Because there is more distance in the first two strophes, it is easier to write of their deaths, not so easy in the third; I sense that is what is causing the difficulty. So the writer has to choose whether to work that difficulty out (this is where I fall), or to leave it to the reader to do this work.
January 14th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Everyone, thank you so much for reading and for all the comments. My intention with this piece was to break death into three circumstances – old age, illness, and accidental. I left S3 ambiguous because of the random, unpredictable nature of accidental deaths; the death in S3 could be anyone at all.
January 16th, 2010 at 7:10 am
fishlovesca and Magdalen –
I thought this may be one of the new-fashioned metaphysicals, but with the supernatural announcer on the ground giving warning that the third Grand Event (the 3rd in the “bad things come in 3′s” thing) is now officially predicted. Yes, I too noticed Publix is not now carrying shoe laces (“with untied shoes”), but that itself may be the 3rd thing, making the careless bumbler an unnecessary 4th, proving still further how mysterious life is and not quite rounded.
January 16th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
This is well-written, but seems rather predictable. I suggest, for your consideration, that death comes in four. The fourth is unadmitted. I know people who’ve been dead for years, they simply refuse to lie down and get buried.
January 17th, 2010 at 8:36 am
Nancy –
You may be right. I sure like those resisters.
A 4′er – “cat’s cradle” of death is probably less permanently injurious to psyche than a “3′er, make ‘em lena.”
February 1st, 2010 at 1:36 am
[...] the most-read poems from January were “Biblical Portions” by Errol Nimbly, “Three” by Damien Walters Grintalis, and “Grief Should Travel in a Straight Line” by [...]