On The Controversial Death Of Ernest Hemingway Poem by Bala Baskar Natarajan

he said
man can be destroyed
but not defeated

and when he grew old
when words and even the world
became to him very cold
still he went to sea
and don't you remember
how he brought back the bone.

i wonder
was it the same old man
who put the gun in his mouth
and shattered himself to death?

that gun
is trying to tell me something

may be destruction implies defeat
but does death -
i mean this kind of death
- imply destruction?