Where Is My Haunting?
Posted: 19 January 2019
Word Count: 298
Summary: Very, very rough but I needed to get something on paper...so it might not make any sense at all!
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Version 3
Death is practical.
A To Do List of grief
to be lived through
yet no sense of
a job well done.
No room for
beauty
in endless forms
that now record
your life.
Your death.
Your essence
in bullet points.
Like a times table
I trot out details
surprised when
my voice catches.
I did not want
this normality.
A hum drum nod
to your passing
that makes me choke
on every intrusion
of memory.
And where is my haunting?
My soul screams
to feel an echo
of your mothering.
Version 2
Death is practical.
A To Do List of grief
to be lived through
yet no sense of
a job well done.
No room for
beauty
in endless forms
that now record
your life.
Your death.
Your essence
in bullet points.
Like a times table
I trot out details
surprised when
my voice catches.
I did not want
this normality.
A hum drum nod
to your passing
that makes me choke
on every intrusion
of memory.
And where is my haunting?
My soul screams
to feel an echo
of your mothering.
But you have gone
And I fill forms.
Death is practical.
A To Do List of grief
to be suffered
yet no sense of
a job well done.
No room for
beauty
in the endless forms
that now record
your life.
Your death.
Your essence
in bullet points.
Like a times table
I rhyme off details
surprised when
my voice catches.
I did not want
this normality.
A hum drum nod
to your passing
that makes me choke
on every intrusion
of memory.
And where is my haunting?
My soul screams
for an echo
of your mothering.
But you have gone.
And I fill forms.
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Comments by other Members
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 James Graham at 20:06 on 22 January 2019
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Hello Jo-Ann – Sometimes in this group a new poem appears that, as soon as I read it, strikes me as not only a very fine poem but a true one. One immediately thinks, this is how it really is. And as often as not we respond in this way because the poem so truly reflects our own experience.
Here we have a record of that difficult time in the early days of bereavement, when we find ourselves faced with dry paperwork – the will, insurance, etc – which seems to reduce a life to ‘bullet points’. Having had that experience myself, I recognise everything in your poem. We need to grieve, but this ‘normality’, this grotesque normality, makes those vital memories seem an ‘intrusion’. The way you express it in this stanza is very telling. I could quote almost the whole poem to exemplify your succinct expression of the truth of one’s feelings and thoughts during this process of dealing with the loved one’s ‘affairs’, but these two quotes do stand out for me:
A To Do List of grief
to be suffered
yet no sense of
a job well done.
My soul screams
to feel an echo
of your mothering.
(Just take the ‘s’ off the end of ‘souls’.) Having read the poem several times, I can find scarcely any word or line which seems out of place. I did think that instead of ‘grief/ to be suffered’ you might have ‘to be lived through’. My reason is that the genuine suffering or facing up to grief comes after these forms (perhaps before too) and the forms seem to suppress or contradict genuine feelings. I also thought of ‘work through’ but it didn’t seem so appropriate. These suggestions are tentative and if you don’t like them just leave ‘suffered’ – after all, filling in those forms brings its own (different) kind of suffering. It’s a fifty-fifty choice.
A change I’m more convinced of is to change ‘rhyme off’ to ‘trot out’:
I trot out details
A possible alternative is ‘parrot’. I think these capture the banality of the forms and make a striking contrast with the ‘intrusion’ of real feeling ‘when/ my voice catches’. To have your voice catch while ‘trotting out’ is very surprising, very unexpected.
Thank you for posting this poem, Jo-Ann. I imagine anyone who reads it, even someone not accustomed to reading poetry but having experience of bereavement, would say, ‘It’s true.That’s how it is’.
James.
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James Graham at 20:16 on 22 January 2019
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Jo-Ann, I need to add another comment because I haven’t paid enough attention to your summary at the top of the page, where you say it’s ‘very, very rough’. I really have no idea what you mean by that. The poem doesn’t seem in the least ‘rough’ to me. However, if there’s anything you’re not satisfied with let me know, and I can discuss any points you make and try to help you make changes.
James.
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 Jojovits1 at 21:47 on 22 January 2019
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Hi James. Thank you for your time and comments. They are very much appreciated, as always.
I say "rough" as it was very quickly written (I really needed to get it out). I never know if I've rambled for a bit and, given the circumstances, was worried it was just a bit of an embarrassing, maudlin out-pouring.
Grief is different for everyone I guess but just for some background...
I remember when my mother in law passed. I hated going to her grave because it was the last place I thought she'd be. I felt her everywhere. I talked to her all the time! I believe implicitly in spirit and the connection to the afterlife (I completely get that it's not everyone's opinion and they might feel I'm a bit loony).
When mum passed very recently, I was shocked not to feel her at all. She's just gone and I guess I'm angry and feel a bit abandoned. I also feel guilt that I'm not grief stricken enough (mainly because I don't let myself dwell on it too much). Then a wave of it knocks you off your feet.
Anyway, this is my little bit of therapy...sorry for dragging you in 😁.
Trot out out is much better, I agree. I also think you are spot on with to be lived through. I'll do an edit and re post.
Thanks again, James.
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Jojovits1 at 22:58 on 22 January 2019
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And the forms and sending back and forth death certs, life certs, policies...bloody endless 🙁.
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 nickb at 20:56 on 23 January 2019
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I love this Jo-Ann. Both my parents died within 6 months of each other in 2011 and so much of what you have written strikes a chord. I love the ending in particular:
And where is my haunting?
My soul screams
for an echo
of your mothering.
But you have gone.
And I fill forms.
"an echo of your mothering" is just wonderful. It encapsulates the sudden absence, the large hole in your life so well. I wrote eulogies for both my parents and found it impossible to really capture their substance. "your essence in bullet points" sums this up really well.
Great poem.
Nick
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 V`yonne at 16:00 on 24 January 2019
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I love the way you have encapsulated in
your life.
Your death.
Your essence
the state of grief -- the person that is gone. And this is reiterated beautifully poignantly in the fianl stanza.
This poem has an immediacy of emotion that doesn't need tampering with, Jo-Ann. Quickly written, it's purity is intact and I wouldn't do too much to it
except that perhaps those lines that cut us deepest and restate that 'essence' should be last?
You already mention the form filling and recording in St2. so I would simply cut
But you have gone.
And I fill forms.
and end the poem with this most powerful and emotional pleading for the ability to really grieve.
And where is my haunting?
My soul screams
for an echo
of your mothering.
And as I sometimes say to people here (although I would take this in a heartbeat at TLWs) it could maybe win a competition. I am sure it would speak to many people. It certainly does to us in Writewords. Thanks for sahring it with us.
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Jojovits1 at 20:16 on 24 January 2019
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Oonah, you may end up with it yet, if you want it. Mum was so proud (and a bit freaked it as it was "The Ring") when I was first published in TLW. This year's Winter issue was what she wanted for Christmas but she sadly didn't make it (bizarrely, I bought two by mistake anyway). It seems fitting that this goes in, if you want it (seriously, no pressure though!) x
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James Graham at 21:33 on 24 January 2019
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I see your version 2 with those changes. I suppose no product of the human imagination is ever perfect, but this is as close as it gets.
Thank you for writing those thoughts about your Mum. They’re very personal – and very natural – and I appreciate your sharing them.
James.
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 Thomas Norman at 10:25 on 25 January 2019
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Hi Jo - I think your second version is a big improvement, it's surprising what a difference a couple of word changes can make. I do think you should keep the final line-detached- it reflects your state of frustration at having no signs.
I lost my father many years ago and still feel his presence so close it's as though I am him. My mother died last year but I feel nothing from her. It's very strange as I loved them both equally. I wrote a poem for my father within days but still nothing comes for my mum.
I've read your second version several times and it just gets better. A wonderful heartrending poem. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings x
Thomas.
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V`yonne at 11:19 on 25 January 2019
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Jo-Ann I am interested to know whether James agrees with the suggested change I made for the ending.
Marie Fitzpatrick lost her mother last March and was looking for some expression of Mother's Day in this issue. I told her about this poem. Therefore if you could make any changes and submit it this weekend, it will appear in this next issue.
I am sure that if you want a little note about your mother or a small photo, we can manage that too.
Oonah
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James Graham at 20:09 on 25 January 2019
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Oonah, I’ve thought about that last line, but I think the poem loses something if it’s left out. With ‘And I fill forms’ (after a double space) it hits me quite hard. After those wonderful lines conveying a desperate need to mourn, we’re left with something quite soul-destroying: a return to a cruelly mundane reduction of a life to facts, dates, sums of money, paid-up policies. It reinforces the point of the poem, that the need to ‘feel an echo/ of your mothering’ is being denied. I agree that the line ‘but you have gone’ could be omitted, as it’s a very plain line which tells us something we are already fully aware of from the beginning, and its plainness is something of an anti-climax after the lines that precede it.
I hope there’s a page reserved in the next TLW for this poem – and that afterwards Jo-Ann will be able to publish it elsewhere too (with an acknowledgement of course).
James.
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V`yonne at 23:24 on 25 January 2019
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Thanks James.
Well Jo-Ann you have seen what James says and I will leave the revision to you now. The poet is always right.
Your spot is reserved. Get it to me soon.
Oonah
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V`yonne at 11:40 on 26 January 2019
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Then again I was thinking about this (in bed -- brain whirring) and I think James is wrong (did I say that???)  because
And I fill forms.
is only a temporary state of affairs whereas
My soul screams
for an echo
of your mothering.
represents an eternal longing and therefore supercedes any other state that would inhibit grief.
Therefore I (as editor) would like the poem to end there. However this is persuasion tactics -- not strong-arm so if you disagree with me, Jo-Ann then of course you must do as you feel best.
Oonah
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Jojovits1 at 14:04 on 26 January 2019
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So, Oonah and James, it turns out you are both right.
James' comments on why to end the poem in that was was exactly what I was trying to convey. I agree with you both on "but you have gone" so I've dropped it but now the last line just doesn't seem to fit and I can't find anything at the moment that will make it work better so I've taken it away and gone with Oonah's suggestions.
Thank you all for taking the time to comment. It means a lot.
Sending it over to you now, Oonah.
Jo x
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James Graham at 21:18 on 26 January 2019
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I look at the version with the last line, and the one without, and I can't make up my mind! They're a little different in their emphasis, but equally good. The right version is the one you are happier with. We'll see it in print pretty soon.
James.
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michwo at 11:33 on 27 January 2019
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Jo-Ann,
Do you have brothers and sisters to help you share the burden? My mother died in 1990 and I miss her organisational abilities as much as anything. My father died way back in 1969. What you've written certainly rings true for me as well. I only wish there had been more people at my mother's funeral. Some of the people who attended are dead themselves now and, as I am now aged 69, I sometimes wonder when it'll be my turn to be honest.
As to your poem, it SHOULD be published in TLW and a.s.a.p. It's not at all self-indulgent and there's a lot to be said for self-restraint: less is more. A lesson I should learn, but find extremely difficult. You might want to look at the only other poem about bereavement in my own experience as a sometime reader of poetry - a short poem by Emily Dickinson that starts with the words: After great pain, a formal feeling comes... and ends with:
This is the Hour of Lead,
Remembered, if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow -
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.
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Jojovits1 at 14:23 on 27 January 2019
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Thank you, Michael.
I have a wonderful brother in Australia with whom she was living when she passed away. He is and always has been, my rock, supporter and idol. There were 9 people at mum's funeral, all family. I got to see it via video link (bizarre times) and it was beautiful.
I will I'll look up the Emily Dickinson poem. It seems to sum it up beautifully.
Jo x
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