“Someday this pain will be useful to you.”

1. “Someday this pain will be useful to you.” By Barry Dempster

2. In my opinion, the theme behind "The dead are watching us" is that life shouldn't be something that you should regret once you're dead. You should be able to die, and look back on your life as an accomplishment, not a disappointment because there are people who have passed away that would give anything for a second chance at life. The poem illustrates that the dead would go through extreme measures to get what we so easily pass over as a convenience. An example from the text that illustrates this theme is "The dead detest us for all of it, our accordions, our clothespins...". This clearly states that the people who have passed are jealous of the living and all that they have. Thematic Statement

3. Paraphrasing Paraphrasing: Our dead family, most of which we probably don’t even know, are watching their bloodline continue to live on. Text: The dead are watching us... grandfathers, great-aunts with faces yellow as bungalow bricks,  Text: distant pioneers administering desire in long lingering looks, their stone-cold irises enthralled. Text: They are in love with the sleek black carpetsof our driveways, the bundles of rhubarb  Text: soaking in stainless steel sinks, the tiny rubber skiffsfloating pink ovals of soap across our steamy tubs. Paraphrasing: Our for-fathers are watching us with jealous eyes aspiring to be like us. Paraphrasing: Paraphrasing:

4. Paraphrasing Continued Paraphrasing: Text: They are longing for luxury, for contentment,those hammocks stretched between elms and telephone poles, those toffee-coloured Buickspurling at the curbs like Burmese cats, those silver-threaded clotheslines spinningwith lusty sheets. They are green as cut stems, as bleeding grass, with envy.  Text: What would they give to sink their bonesin our broadloom, to squeeze their hands down our elastic waistbands, to collapse onour porcelain thrones? Paraphrasing Text: Eternityfor the blue pulse of a TV set, the chill of a dinner bell, the creak of a back fence as it divides us into conversations and families. Paraphrasing:

5. Paraphrasing Continued Paraphrasing: Text: They would lie or steal for the opportunity of sleeping next to us, cotton bums as soft as lettuce leaves, nipples the size of rosebuds.  Text: They would kill us for our silverware, our cameras, our Christmas tree angels, those assets proving we're alive, the crystal butter dish,the walnut pipe, the painting of a long-haired Christ whose eyes are blessing everything he sees.The dead detest us for all of it, our accordions, our clothespins, our bowls of red-hot porridge. Paraphrasing: Paraphrasing: Text: They can't wait for us to retire from this luck, a gruesome heart attack or snivelling cancer cell. Text: Once we've recovered from the thrill of our souls floating over the Scarborough Bluffs, we will know exactly what it's like to watch how much we've left behind. Paraphrasing:

6. Poetic Devices Line One; Personification; The dead are watching usLine Two; Simile; with faces yellow as bungalow bricks,Line Four; Personification; their stone-cold irises enthralled.Line Seven; Alliteration; soaking in stainless steel sinksLine Nine; Alliteration; They are longing for luxuryLine Twelve; Simile; purling at the curbs like Burmese cats,Line Fifteen; Personification; as bleeding grass, with envy.Line Twenty Four / Twenty Five; cotton bums as soft as lettuce leaves …

7. The End.