Twittering

I looked and I feel somewhat sad.
This is a picture of my Dad
Standing before the Eiffel Tower
Taken, maybe, just an hour
After Paris was liberated.
My own Dad it seems was fated
To be there as the Nazis fled.
He has a cap upon his head
Tilted at a rakish angle
And from his hands he gaily dangles
A rifle... and with no little grace
Seems to imply that that place
Will be again a place of light
As the Nazis go down to endless night.
He fought the good war as they say
And forgot...but then one day
He seemed to have something to say
When I was leaving then to go
Into the army . He said "Joe,
You know when I was in the war..."
Then nothing else. There was no more.
And I agree. What can you say?
But I remember that strange day.
What's the price for all of that?
Meaning that is where it's at.
Worthless also! So what's revealed?
Only that you sometime feel
That nothing ever makes real sense.
Which is what I felt when I went hence.
But still my Dad stood at that hour
Gaily before the Eiffel Tower.
And in a field not far away
Someone's father died that day.

Let us go then you and I.
No, we cannot be bitter.
To our new home in the sky
And we will not remember Twitter.

We will go and bid the soldiers shoot
To get with child a Mandrake root
Then stagger to the Mermaid Tavern
Avoid the pit, eschew the cavern
And there cry out just what we know
Tales of weakness, tales of woe.
Then sip our ale and wait for one
William Blake? maybe John Donne!
For God's sake given where we were
I'd take Walter De La Mare
No one comes. We wait an hour.
The off we go to the Dark Tower.
From the Mermaid to the bower.
Ben asks to wait another hour.
We'll wait an hour more at least.
"Ah, look Ben -- what rough beast!"
Slouching out from Bethlehem
To say "Hello!" to me and Ben
Face of Auden. Eyes of Yeats.
Custom built to serve, it waits.
Chats a bit..says it was built in
A railway town by the name of Milton.
Asks the way to Simplon Pass
Says that it must go, alas
Can't find the way. It's lost you see
In Seven Types of Ambiguity.
And we are lost but long for that...
And Macavity the Mystery cat
Is there and then, ah then
We meet the long world's gentleman.

A few years ago my Dad was dying
I sat beside him trying trying
To be anywhere but there
To be anywhere no where.
Held his hand as I read a book.
Didn't really want to look.
The resistance. Nazis in the mist.
Felt him shake and then I kissed
Him...when was the last time I...?
I looked at him. I watched him die.
Then he whispered, "I need you...
There's one thing I want you to do,,,"
Then I couldn't hear just what he said.
I went away then he was dead.
See the granite on his tombstone glitter.
Then we're gone too. Twitter. Twitter.