Distance & Separation



There is an emptiness
  between Hemingway’s words

A hollow sound
  that slides off the page

The space creates distance
  as the Old Man wanted

From the reader
  and voyeurs of pain

“Distance between himself and the day
   he hauled in that great fish

“Distance from that last great battle
   calling out from beyond his reach

“Distance from the arena, where the
   horns got close but death got closer

“And distance from the many women
   he tried to love and failed”

No matter how far he lived afield,
  be it Paris, Havana, or Ketchum

In no place was there distance enough
  or where his words could be safe

The separation and memory loss
  became deafening and finally too much

As he gave in to the distance
   —one last and final time.

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)
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Submitted by KurtPhilipBehm on August 21, 2018

Modified on March 05, 2023

40 sec read
29

Quick analysis:

Scheme XX XX AX BX XX XX XB XX XX XX XX AX X
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 766
Words 134
Stanzas 13
Stanza Lengths 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1

Kurt Philip Behm

Longtime writer with twelve books in publication. Three of them Poetry. : The Death Of The Playground : The Sword Of Ichiban : Searching For Crazy Horse : Darkening Sun : An Anthology Of Perception-Vol's 1 & 2 : After Midnight : Sammy And Bumpers : The Fall City Mandate : Revenge Along The War Trail : Death from The Sky more…

All Kurt Philip Behm poems | Kurt Philip Behm Books

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