"Face-to-Face with the Angel of Death" by Parker

Face-to-Face with the Angel of Death

 I was exhausted, I had lost all strength, all illusion.
Suddenly, the evidence overwhelmed me: there was no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight.
The idea of dying, of ceasing to be, began to fascinate me.
Death enveloped me, it suffocated me. It stuck to me like glue.
One more stab to the heart, one more reason to hate. One less reason to live.
How good it would be to die right here!
To no longer exist.
I gathered all that remained of my strength in order to break rank and throw myself onto the barbed wire.
I was face-to-face with the Angel of Death.
But I had no right to let myself die.
Every day, my father was getting weaker.
What would he do without me?
I was stronger than cold and hunger, stronger than the guns and the desire to die.
I walked on with my father.

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 23, 2019 at 10:03 AM

    Parker,

    While I was reading Night, I remember noting the line "Face- to- Face with the Angel of Death", so that's what I noticed about your poem. It was really fascinating to see how you wrote this poem because he didn't really have a reason to live, but then he remembered that he didn't have a right to die yet. Good job!

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  2. AnonymousOctober 27, 2019 at 8:20 AM

    Great job Parker! I was intrigued by your overall theme, which felt like a cross between death, helplessness, and triumph. Your punctuation left the perfect amount of time for the exclamation , or impact of the lines to sink in. In the poem it felt at first like the prisoner was struggling, fighting against death, but then gradually gave in, wanting the suffering to stop, before stopping that train of thought to help his family. The part you mentioned about “no right to let myself die” was very powerful to me. Despite the advice and actions of others, this prisoner was able to almost forget his mind, his body entirely to assuage the best he could the troubles of his family. This was very well written!

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