A Reflection on Mortality.
Introducing "He Was A Good Man"
Some poems aren’t written—they emerge, and more often than not, the poems that fall out in 5 minutes (or as Michael Stipe would call it, ‘vomit songs’) are the ones that feel most natural and are the ones I am most proud of.
They take shape in the quiet spaces of observation, in the moments that linger too long, in the uncomfortable truths we wrestle with. He Was A Good Man is one of those poems.
What Inspired This Poem
The inspiration came from a neighbor—a good man, in every sense of the word. He lived simply, with a kind of quiet dignity, while his wife, in stark contrast, seemed to embody bitterness and silence. Their dynamic fascinated me, and I couldn’t help but reflect on what it means to be “good” in a world so often unkind.
The setting became a character in itself: the Pacific Northwest, with its overpowering presence, the magnolia tree we planted too late, its branches bare of the flowers I so desperately wanted. These details aren’t just backdrops—they’re symbols of the quiet disappointments, the hopes, and the inevitabilities that shape our lives.
Why I Choose to Write About Mortality
Mortality is the thread that runs through this piece. In most of my work, death, being haunted, and transcendence from this life to the next all play a certain role. The inevitability, the finite nature of existence all allow me space to write in the here and now.
My neighbor was dying, and I was drawn into his final days in a way I didn’t expect. Witnessing someone’s fragility forces you to confront your own. He was 60, and as many stories are told, cancer had taken hold suddenly. Within the space of 8 months, he had gone from a senior executive at a tech firm on the West Coast to a pale imitation of himself.
The final line “He was a good man. I was neither” is my way of grappling with that confrontation. It’s not self-pity or judgment; it’s an acknowledgment of the gap between how we see ourselves and how we perceive others and my own failings. Writing this poem helped me navigate that space and explore the tension between generosity and inadequacy, between care and distance.
Introducing the Poem
It’s about those moments when life feels unbearably small and unbearably large at the same time—the flicker of a television in a dark room, the smell of acetone in the air - (Did you know when someone is dying they emit the smell of nail polish remover?), and the shortest day of the year passing with quiet formality.
Yet, in the smallest of moments, fractures are formed. What is inconsequential to an observer is meaningful to the protagonist. My wife watched him on the porch, often looking up to the sky, and she felt an inextricable moment of heaviness, of meditating on where we go when we finally depart.
I hope "He Was A Good Man" draws you into these moments, helps you see their beauty and complexity, and leaves you reflecting on what it means to be human.
What happens when the line between life and death becomes a thin thread, barely holding? He Was A Good Man explores mortality, yet there’s an undercurrent of tenderness and admission that my own thoughts about his wife may not reflect kindness or be representative of what an empathetic neighbor should be.
Returning to the final line…
He was a good man.
I was neither.
The poem ends not with closure but with acknowledgment: a reflection on the ambiguous legacies we leave behind, the moments that define us, and the truths we may struggle to accept.
Below is the full poem. I hope you’ll sit with it, wrestle with it, and perhaps see familiar fractured reflections:
He Was A Good Man.
The tooth came loose in my mouth,
Aluminum taste,
blood trickling.
I sat on the porch,
looking out.
This affluent neighborhood
Twinkling as the season turned pale,
the Pacific NorthWest
overpowering my nostrils.
The magnolia tree, we planted too late
in those summer days of renewal.
A 9-branched candelabra; bare,
never had it borne the flowers I so desperately wanted.
Winter solstice beckoned.
My insistence was we should become pagans
And retire staid religious traditions.
To the west, he sat, eyes tethered to the stars,
Meditating on the simple life he led.
My wife called it pathos.
Six months, the doctor had said.
Generosity at its worst.
Nights later, the doorbell rang.
His wife,
a rancid specimen of silence and bile,
Shaken, in tears, asking me to help -
He’d fallen in the shower.
I duly obliged; what else does one do?
He was a good man.
She was neither.
There he lay, hunched,
sallow clingfilm loose on alabaster tiles.
Wrapping my arms around his stomach
The bones, the sinew, the muscle
Too close to the touch.
Acetone fumes filled the air.
His unpainted nails were a telltale sign,
These were his last days.
I navigated to a leather club chair,
Inches from a television screen.
His now oversized pajamas shrouded the truth.
I reassured him,
“I’ve got you, don’t worry.”
A makeshift sarcophagus
In their front bedroom.
The lights dimmed.
The television flickered,
A cacophony of life adjacent
Within touching distance
Unsuspecting horizons moved gently
The shortest day passed with formality.
Children waited impatiently
He’d be dead within days.
He was a good man.
I was neither.
Pathos, indeed.