Light in Darkness

This is something I've wanted to draw/paint since I recently read a passage in a Louise Penny novel that uses the image of a moth's battering itself against a porchlight. It didn't occur to me to write it until I saw a prompt at d'Verse Poets. I still will draw it. That's next on my list. Meanwhile:

LIGHT IN DARKNESS

As for the Light in Darkness,

it's only just

a bare bulb promise

against which the lonesome soul

taps and taps 

her insistent longing

in an inevitable song 

of the night.

Mourners Come and Go

 

Mourners
come and go,
come and go.

The ones I know
sit alone in
separate rows.

We're all of us
alone as we come
and as we go

to and fro,
to and fro,
alone, alone,

all, all alone
as we come,
as we go.

Mystery

This poem was written after one glance at Odilon Redon's "Mystery" and as part of the IGRT challenge by Hedgewitch to write an ekphrastic poem on one of Redon's works. The lamb in the poem is from both the painting and an experience shared with a dying loved-one who asked, "Who is that man over there?" When asked what man she meant, she pointed to blank space and said that man with the sheep." She was a lifelong Catholic. She "should have" seen a man with a glowing heart. She saw lambs. Mystery.

Mystery

the final mystery

hanging on the wall

a man

a lamb

a cup

a man with a lamb in his hands

a man cradling a cup

like Lazarus, a man raised up

around my neck

upon my wall

that man 

that plan 

that mystery

What the Net Holds

“the tongues of dying men / 

enforce attention like deep harmony.”

                                                                   —W. S. Shakespeare

One final time, we wait 

for you to speak the truth 

we know you knew.

Your dry tongue clicks,

lips like gaping fish.

Not air you strain

from or to, but the wish 

to speak of beauty, harmony, 

and truth. Too late.

We come too late in the day

for you to say, and yet we stay

suspended in the possibility

that the air we breathe

has molecules of you

dissolved and thrown 

against the deeply mortal reef.

When finally we leave,

our nets are filled, heavy with

the poetry we seek.

Waiting Room

Waiting Room

The woman in the bunny pants
is  most patient of the patients;

waiting seems her nature.

Maybe these appointments 
have become her only outing.

She's going out among 'em, 
as my old dad used to say.

Among whom, I always wondered;
now I know: the dead, the dying,
the sinner sick of sinning, 
the patient weight of living 
all too much like drowning.

Begins and Ends in Dust

 

Begins and Ends in Dust

This is the door

I stand before:

The entry, ivy and rust,

Hinge that groans,

Wood that moans,

Step that is covered in dust.

This is the door

I stand before:

Heart that stills with trust,

Body that groans,

Mouth that moans,

Hands that are speckled with rust.

This is the way

I go today:

The way that all men must.

Lines Written Upon Feeling a Warm Breeze on My Face for the First Time This Spring

Don't put me in the Narrow Bed
When at last I lay my head...

If dust -- as chimney sweepers must--
Then in the air my mettle rust --

The wind to blow upon the bones
A melody of cheerful tones,

The sun to warm a cooling heart...

A feast of CULINARY ART
For worm and grub and bug and crow...

For Pete's sake, better lay me low!

Pickle and stuff my empty shell --
Just save me from the maggot's hell!



This started out as serious thought, but even I recognize how bad it was, so...voila: Compost Tea (of me).

Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day!

Pyre

The Poetry Jam challenge is to write an elegy. This doesn't fit the bill, but it is about death, and I already had it in the works. Go to the Jam (click on the pic on my sidebar) and read more. For that matter, look below this poem for another about death. Cheerful, aren't I?


















When I burn low--
Cooling off with age
So that the fires of life
Are full too strong to be,

When I am bent --
Drawn unto the earth
So that the narrow bed
Is all the world I see,

When I dissolve --
Sift away through time
So nothing else is left
Except what's best of me,

When I am loosed --
Clay begun to shed
So I am but a mark
In someone's memory,

Then let me sail alone,
Untethered by regret
Burning in the night,
Grateful to be free.

Glendalough

 

Glendalough

All around, the dead, they lay
In hillocks green, ‘neath mossy stone,
Unmarked, untold, forgotten now;
The trial, the strife, unmourned, unknown.
Interred here, the babe, the wife,
Sarah, Peg and Maryanne,
These least, they dwell among the best,
The ancient lords, the highest man,
Whose weathered crests, now ivy mocked,
Defeated stones on hummocks fall.
The honored place of weeds and green,
By nature claimed, is shared by all

In Glendalough, where servants lay
Aside of saints and lords and stones,
As all shall come to rest one day
Amid the ancient hills of  home.

In the Valley

In the Valley

I expect when I get to the valley of the shadow of death,

I will find a whole forest of petrified souls,

A horde of giant rocks as far as I can see,

Crowded in together but standing each apart.

Some, like Lot’s wife, will be casting craggy glances

Over their shoulders, straining for the land of milk and honey,

Wishing someone would start the game all over

So they could learn the rules;

Others, stoic as those terra cotta warriors,

Will face forward with their hands still on the hilt

Unflinching and ready to take whatever comes their way.

Some will be massive, silent and implacable as Stonehenge.

I think my soul will be small and hard as flint,

A little me-shaped boulder wedged against a barren hill

Where I’ll wait for a weeping savior to heave me away from

The cavernous dark inside which, like Lazarus,

I find myself hobbled and bound.

his story

Argent is driving the Poetry Bus this week, and the challenge is to write about skeletons in the family closet. I've been trying unsuccessfully to write about my larger-than-life uncle since he died in October, but I was approaching it from my emotions. For the bus, I decided simply to tell his story.

You can find family stories of the Bus driver and other passengers here.





his story

a young boy, a sad one,

abandoned, alone,

a soldier, a looker,

a lover when grown,

a talker, a salesman,

the jetset, the cash,

the women, the takers,

the booze and the hash,

the horses, the races,

the Caddy, the oil,

the money he made

gushing out of the soil,

rich men and leaders

to take every call

the higher you rise,

the harder you fall;

five wives and five children

one buried, then four

abandoned by him

just as he was before;

the lying, the losses

the excess, the waste,

the bridges he burned

all collapsing in haste;

unforgiven, abandoned,

his end like his start;

but sift through the ash,

there's a boy’s broken heart

Scattering

SCATTERING

I wonder

If you noticed

As you left

The way the light

Behind you

Gathered on the plains

And how the blues

Distilled from noonday skies

Became a darkened canvas

Of the day and how the dot of sun

Would pull our eyes

Away from that one spot

Where you had been

To somewhere in a distance

Past the clouds

To places you might wander

Through again.

I wonder if you took

The time at all

To have a look behind

To fix the spot

Where time and space

All scattered have become

A picture of the place

Where you are not.

Your leaving is a telling

Beyond words, an empty seat,

A setting, distant sun,

A barren tree,

A scattering of birds,

The painting of a sorrow

Just begun.

Crossings

At the crossing

On South Poplar,

An old man lost his life.

By the time I drove across,

Darkness hid the scene.

I saw nothing of eternity,

Only a huddle of people,

Caught in headlights.

The old man was gone,

As if he’d never been.

I wondered as I drove on home

If he had known too late

That this would be his end.

Further out on the mountain,

I had to stop for an old buck

Standing in the road.

Impassive in my headlights,

He gazed at me a long time

Before deciding to turn and leap away.

Ashes and Bone

Ashes and Bone

When I am gone,

Put me to the fire;

Ashes and bone

Are all that I desire

Be left of me.

Let me have

Fair wind to sift me

Through the trees;

Grey amidst the green

Is what I long to be.

Find me in the field,

A rustle of the grass,

Or hollow in the hills;

Beside the garden path,

I’ll sing among the reeds.

Put me to the fire,

Share me with the day;

Let my spark inspire

New green among the grey

From all that’s left of me.

memento mori

The following poem is written as part of the TFE Poetry Bus Tour, a Monday poetry challenge that this week is a response to Krzystof Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims (of Hiroshima).

The challenge was to write as we listened to the music without knowing anything about the piece. In the spirit of the challenge, I did not even look at the title of the composition as I wrote the following poem, which I think has a strange synchronicity with the inspiration for the music:




Memento Mori

Moving, moving,

Roundabout,

We’re in, we’re in,

We can’t get out;

We’re held too long

Inside the song.

Hidden passage,

Many doors,

Stairs to nowhere,

Many floors,

Boarded windows

To the world,

Hiding, dodging

In a whirl;

Sliding slowly

Down the wall,

Head in hands,

We hear the call

To take up arms

Or else we fall.

The train we’re on,

The train is gone.

Looking back,

Grey and black,

Crowds of people

On the track.

Doors not opened.

Empty chairs.

Empty rooms

Inviting stares;

All is loss.

Lost is all.

We’re going,

We are gone.

Kitty's Gone.

I said those words aloud just now

To the open air. Robin didn’t answer;

He didn’t seem to care.

"Oh, ho!" I thought, "Your little brain

Has soon forgotten how he came

And flushed you from your evening nest

And ran you crazy like the rest

Of the birds he used to rule."

He’s in the ground, and like a fool,

I sit alone and think on how

I said those words aloud just now.