AURORA BOREALIS
The have found Franklin’s ship
a hundred years frozen in ice
Franklin and Franklin’s men
cold, hungry and can-lead crazy
blinded by the glare and the glory
Maybe this is how
we should paint the ceilings of the dying
Tag Archives: Death
FORCEPS AGAIN
FORCEPS AGAIN
Science tries its best to help
nature from birth to death
They grasp your tiny head
to pull you in
and tether you to tubes
to stop your going
A CAUTION AGAINST TOO MUCH CHURCH TOO SOON
A CAUTION AGAINST TOO MUCH CHURCH TOO SOON
Brother Wally at age three or four
sitting on the tracks as the train approaches
wanting to find out what it’s like to be an angel
The last minute rescue
granting him some fame and slack
when he went back to being
the little devil he had been the day before
WRITING ON STONE
WRITING ON STONE
Pop Bukowski in his coffin
dead as hell
but reaching for one last beer
and almost making it.
Al Purdy
On the stone on my grave
I have asked them to write
I’LL TRY TO WRITE
And I will
Seeking still
some simile or metaphor
What is it like, or most unlike
Am I below or above
does it taste like dust or love
If I can’t write about it
how will I know I’m dead
How will you know
I’m still alive
THE DEATH OF A THOUSAND CUPS
THE DEATH OF A THOUSAND CUPS
Some die by inches, some by ounces
Little by little he sank below the surface
Each meeting less and less of him there
– a discussion without a quorum
It’s been a few months now
and he hasn’t appeared in dreams
or haunting our old haunts
It was so long
since he knew he was alive
he may not yet know that he is dead
A FAREWELL TO ERIC
In nineteen seventy five
In the rainforests of Venezuela
Eric lived for a year with the Yanomami
He also lived with the Hunkpapa
the little people that only the shamans see
unless you toke what the shamans toke
then you can see them too
When Eric was ready to go home
the Yanomami gathered by the river
and wailed and mourned as if he’d died
Eric says his goodbyes and tries to start his boat
Tuned up, new plugs and all, but it just won’t start
He pulls and pulls while the tribesmen wail
After what seems like a very long time
the shaman comes down to the boat
and asks Eric if he’s sure he must leave
Eric insists again that the time has come
The shaman admits that he has placed
Hunkpapas in the motor to keep him there
He pulls them out one by one
juggling them hot in his hands
and throws them steaming into the river
One pull and the motor starts
In two thousand and twelve in Austin
Eric is ready to go home again
Many wail and wish that he would stay
but he knows that it is time to leave
At times like this it helps
to have a shaman for a friend
John Hawk flies in and reads
Eric’s poems to the Hunkpapas
and watches as the little people leave
It takes a few pulls, but the motor starts
THE COURAGE OF MINERS
THE COURAGE OF MINERS
For Tiger and Benny
To go down
each day
into your
grave
And rise
at end of shift
with Lazarus-like joy
– except when
you don’t
LOSSES
LOSSES
Empty as a mouth full of snow
-Lois P. Jones
We lost another calf
we lost another crop
We lost an uncle in the war
These are not like keys of city folk
that they find in their other coat
The things we lose out here
don’t come back any more
DRAGGING IT OUT
DRAGGING IT OUT
The organ donor dies
over a very long time
and in a great many places
Not immortality exactly
but at least a lingering mortality
And for those of us
who find it so hard to let go
some comfort to know
that kidney that went to a child
might keep us going for another fifty
FEEDING AMELIA
FEEDING AMELIA
I knew you’d come
was the first thing that she said
as she lay
cancer hollowed on her bed
On the second visit
Robin and I read her the poem
the one you usually get to read
only after they are dead
On the third visit
I brought mushroom soup
from the good restaurant across town
and fed it to her, spoon by gentle spoon
A last meal in three courses