I read these two poems for PC lit essay and got rather disturbed...

Elegy for My Father, Who is Not Yet Dead - Andrew Hudgins

One day I’ll lift the telephone
and be told my father’s dead. He’s ready.
In the sureness of his faith, he talks
about the world beyond this world
as though his reservations have
been made. I think he wants to go,
a little bit - a new desire
to travel building up, an itch
to see fresh worlds. Or older ones.
He thinks that when I follow him
he’ll wrap me in his arms and laugh,
they way he did when I arrived
on earth. I do not think he’s right.
He’s ready. I am not. I can’t
just say goodbye as cheerfully
as if he were embarking on a trip
to make my later trip go well.
I see myself on deck, convinced
his ship’s gone down, while he’s convinces
I’ll see him standing on the dock
and waving, shouting, Welcome back.
.

.

The following poem is actually 4 stanzas, with 4 lines each.

Long Distance - Tony Harrison

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.

.

.

I was wondering why was it so difficult to understand, and then i realised it was RJC prelim 2007.

I still dont catch the 2nd poem's last stanza.

The only conclusive inference i made thus far, is that both personas are insane.

And i love the ending of both poems, or at least poem A.

I favour cyclical poems, most of the time.

It is still possible to write out an A essay, in fact not too difficult once i understood both poems.

--

I thought our lives would be rather peaceful when alarm clocks lose its rightful place, yet at the same time, chaos would ensue.

--

Sleeping early seems a near impossibility nowadays.

And why did the pencil and stapler not come home to its pencil box?

Just because i forgot to ask them back...I am for once getting irritated in quite a long time.\

No, it is confirmed, i am annoyed.

Is there a Lost and Found for a lost friend?