PAPA
The time is near
The clock is queer
I have had more than one beer.
Papa crept downstairs
In the early morning.
The keys are close to the time.
They open the locked cabinet beneath it.
The shotgun is quickly loaded
Two in the chambers just in case
Then the gun is heeled to the wall
And his forehead firmly anchors it.
Hands reach down –
And Bang!
Papa is no more.
PAPA’S TRIBE
The wives and mistresses
All mealy grins and doughy skins
With their ever-wet holes
And their second-hand sins
Watching as the mirror butterflies their faces
Twinned with depthless images of themselves
Wronged women staring back in anguish
Each flopped vacuously on vacant shelves
Leftovers or left behinds
None are sure of which is which
All of them are certain of one thing though;
It’s one of the others
That is the biggest bitch.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tom-OBrien/e/B0034OIGOQ/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1388083522&sr=1-2-ent
excerpt from Lorian Hemingway’s memoir on her grandfather Ernest;
I had visited my grandfather’s grave in Ketchum the summer I had caught the marlin, arriving at the small hillside cemetery on a scalding July day, a half-finished fifth of vodka in one hand, a filter-tip cigar in the other. I’d made my way to the simple marble slab marked by a white cross, and stood swaying over the marker for a long time, expecting epiphany, resolution, a crashing, blinding flash of insight…. I wanted to say something of value to the old man, perhaps that I had met a dare he had set forth by example, but nothing came. The neck of the bottle grew hot in my hand. I tipped it to my mouth, taking a long swig, then poured the rest, a stream of booze, clear as Caribbean waters, at the head of the marker. “Here,” I said, “have this,” and walked away.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY (who loved horse racing); “I never back any animal that can talk – except myself”
PAPA
The time is near
The clock is queer
I have had more than one beer.
Papa crept downstairs
In the early morning.
The keys are close to the time.
They open the locked cabinet beneath it.
The shotgun is quickly loaded
Two in the chambers just in case
Then the gun is heeled to the wall
And his forehead firmly anchors it.
Hands reach down –
And Bang!
Papa is no more.
When Ernest Hemingway blew his brains out with his shotgun in his kitchen on the morning of July 2nd 1961, he wasn’t the first in the Hemingway family, nor would he be the last.
His father, Dr Clarence Hemingway, took the same way out in 1928, though he used a revolver and not a shotgun.
His sister, Ursula, who was suffering from cancer, took a drug overdose and died on 30th Oct 1966
Leicester Hemingway, Ernest’s younger brother shot himself with a .22 pistol in September 1982
Actress/model Margot Hemingway, Ernest’s grand-daughter, died of a drug overdose on 1st July 1996
Gregory Hemingway – sometimes known as Gloria Hemingway – and Ernest’s third son, died under mysterious circumstances whilst in police custody on 1st Oct 2001.
Gregory said of his father’s death; ‘I am glad my father is dead because now I can’t disappoint him any more’. Gregory, who was a practising doctor struggled with the cross of his father’s fame all his life. He also had problems with his own sexuality; he was a transsexual, sometimes living as Gloria Hemingway. Despite this, he married 4 times, including his father’s assistant, Valerie Danby-Smith. They had three children together before they finally split up in 1989.
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA
PAPA
The time is near
The clock is queer
I have had more than one beer.
Papa crept downstairs
In the early morning.
The keys are close to the time.
They open the locked cabinet beneath it.
The shotgun is quickly loaded
Two in the chambers just in case
Then the gun is heeled to the wall
And his forehead firmly anchors it.
Hands reach down –
And Bang!
Papa is no more.
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