"Your Frown" by Howard Stein

Your Frown

Howard Stein   

You are dead – how hard it still is to say –

But your frown, your scorn,

"Shadow" Ink on Paper
By J. Artemus Gordon

Are still alive in me.

I see your angry face

As if you were still

Standing before me.

Though we buried you,

I cannot keep you away –

Nor would I wish to,

For you were gentle, too,

And I would keep you

For a comfort,

But your grimace shows up

Like a ghost, unbidden,

Condemning me to a

Life sentence of your fury.

I wish I could repel you,

But I cannot. I sometimes think

That my dying would end

Your vicious gaze,

But you, no doubt,

Would follow me to hell –

Though, come to think of it,

I can think of no worse

Or more permanent hell

Than your disapproving face

In this life. 

Poet's Notes:  The source of this poem is the experience of being and feeling haunted by the memory--that often feels like a presence--of someone who died. In different ways, it is about my experience of growing up with my father and mother.  They had wildly contrasting moods that appeared, disappeared, reappeared, and changed.