437 Death poems

Rachel Sherwood 1954-1979 "What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?" —Erich Segal, Love Story The first time we talked was in the rooftop cafeteria at Cal State Northridge. Misplaced poets, we sat amidst a crop of clean-cut freshmen while, round the college, smog-smudged San Fernando Valley beckoned, panoramic and bland. I’d just returned from my debauched year up north—sad, drunken sex at the baths, in dark parks. You still yearned for St. David’s, your stint as a foreign exchange student. In Wales, something fearless woke you up: you drank, wrote, fucked. Now, stuck in the suburbs, we talked poets, punk rock. This was the late seventies, disco’s zenith. We both wanted to look like Patti Smith. We both wanted to look like Patti Smith on her Horses album: disheveled, pale, thin, intense. You were scanning Meredith’s “Modern Love” for British Lit. I thought stale anyone before Sexton. You laughed, threw back your head. I puffed a Marlboro Light. In truth, you were too hearty, and I too uptight, to do punk. I praised, as twilight dimmed the gray valley, a poem you’d read at the student reading: a pitcher cracks, foreshadows a car crash. The skyline bled behind you. I’d also read that night—racked with stage fright, trembling uncontrollably. You seemed at ease, more confident than me. You seemed at ease, more confident than me, more independent. Lived on Amigo Avenue with a roommate, a moody science major; and your alter ego, a tomcat named Baby Tubbs. Still at home, I had no wheels. You drove a battered white hatchback full of newspapers, beer cans, comb, brush, books—half wastebasket, half purse. One night early on, we split a fifth of scotch, spread your tarot cards on the living room floor. You predicted long life for me, then said of yourself: “I might make twenty-five.” Your roommate walked by, shot a look. Later, I passed out beneath Lord Byron’s watchful eye. Passed out beneath Lord Byron’s watchful eye— the poster tacked above your secondhand couch—I dreamt I was falling down the side of a mountain, a scarecrow, twisted and limp, limbs ripped, bouncing from rock to rock. On every wall an idol: Toulouse-Lautrec cancan in kitchen, young Chatterton’s wan figure over your desk. Shuffling the deck, you asked the same question, drew the same black card: Death. Together we consulted all your oracles: Ouija board, zodiac, I Ching, palm, a fickle Magic 8 Ball. Hoping for more time, you inquired, believed like a convict praying for a reprieve. Like a convict praying for a reprieve, you were more alive than the complacent suburbanites I despised. Drunk and peeved at the world, I started an argument that ended with you hurling a full Coors at me as I fumed down your stairs. Four weeks passed before we spoke, a rift I endured by writing a poem about the freak- ish night a black cloud followed us—we lit candles, toasted oblivion. Battle scarred, we entered the undergraduate poetry contest at Northridge. Daniel Halpern guest judged...or was it May Swenson? After your death, I’d be happy you won. What can you say about a twenty-five- year-old girl who died? That as a child she loved horses. And dogs. And cats. That Monty Python made her laugh. That she was alive to the disruptions of her time. That she liked Byron, Rod Stewart, Mozart, Waugh, Poe, Keats, the Cars. That she lived on Amigo and was my friend. That she once threw her keys in anger; once threw a New Yorker, shout- ing “I hate John Ashbery!” And that she once, after a speed- and scotch-fueled orgy— Some Girls blasting, her last boyfriend passed out beside us—straddled, rode me like a horse. Rachel, can I say this: your cunt felt coarse. After your death, I’d be happy you won the contest—at least you had that. “Don’t turn on me,” you pleaded. Losing wasn’t fun, but I couldn’t begrudge you your prize. Burned out from an abortion, a vicious bite— a German shepherd lunged at your nose, slit its tip—and a violent unrequit- ed affair with your “Don J,” a closet case obsessed with Kerouac, you spoke of making a change. By then it was summer: Blondie on the car radio, Fourth of July, craving fireworks. I remember headlights; reaching for the steering wheel, you. Next thing I knew, I woke in ICU. Next thing I knew, I woke in ICU: machines beeping around me, doctors and nurses hovering in an eerie blue light. Tube down my throat, I scrawled, with bruised hand, your name, question mark. My sister was steered in, wept to tell you were dead. The night they moved me to a private room, you appeared, pulsating white presence, in the hallway outside my door. “I’m all right,” you said, “You don’t have to worry about me.” I’d lie there in traction for six weeks, almost two decades ago, a ghost that fell from my own scarecrow dream, numb to that deadly drop. The first time we talked was on a rooftop.

It had better been hidden But the Poets inform: We are chattel and liege Of an undying Worm. Were you, Will, disheartened, When all Stratford’s gentry Left their Queen and took service In his low-lying country? How many white cities And grey fleets on the storm Have proud-builded, hard-battled, For this undying Worm? Was a sweet chaste lady Would none of her lover. Nay, here comes the Lewd One, Creeps under her cover! Have ye said there’s no deathless Of face, fashion, form, Forgetting to honor The extent of the Worm? O ye laughers and light-lipped, Ye faithless, infirm, I can tell you who’s constant, ’Tis the Eminent Worm. Ye shall trip on no limits, Neither time ye your term, In the realms of His Absolute Highness the Worm.

Children picking up our bones Will never know that these were once As quick as foxes on the hill; And that in autumn, when the grapes Made sharp air sharper by their smell These had a being, breathing frost; And least will guess that with our bones We left much more, left what still is The look of things, left what we felt At what we saw. The spring clouds blow Above the shuttered mansion-house, Beyond our gate and the windy sky Cries out a literate despair. We knew for long the mansion's look And what we said of it became A part of what it is ... Children, Still weaving budded aureoles, Will speak our speech and never know, Will say of the mansion that it seems As if he that lived there left behind A spirit storming in blank walls, A dirty house in a gutted world, A tatter of shadows peaked to white, Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.

Would it surprise you to learn that years beyond your longest winter you still get letters from your bank, your old philanthropies, cold flakes drifting through the mail-slot with your name? Though it's been a long time since your face interrupted the light in my door-frame, and the last tremblings of your voice have drained from my telephone wire, from the lists of the likely, your name is not missing. It circles in the shadow-world of the machines, a wind-blown ghost. For generosity will be exalted, and good credit outlasts death. Caribbean cruises, recipes, low-interest loans. For you who asked so much of life, who lived acutely even in duress, the brimming world awaits your signature. Cancer and heart disease are still counting on you for a cure. B'nai Brith numbers you among the blessed. They miss you. They want you back.

Though the road turn at last to death’s ordinary door, and we knock there, ready to enter and it opens easily for us, yet all the long journey we shall have gone in chains, fed on knowledge-apples acrid and riddled with grubs. We taste other food that life, like a charitable farm-girl, holds out to us as we pass— but our mouths are puckered, a taint of ash on the tongue. It’s not joy that we’ve lost— wildfire, it flares in dark or shine as it will. What’s gone is common happiness, plain bread we could eat with the old apple of knowledge. That old one—it griped us sometimes, but it was firm, tart, sometimes delectable ... The ashen apple of these days grew from poisoned soil. We are prisoners and must eat our ration. All the long road in chains, even if, after all, we come to death’s ordinary door, with time smiling its ordinary long-ago smile.

When bodies broken and all bodies seared Are counted up, uncrusted, tagged as feared, We know next day the scene will stand alone On pages white and mindless of the bone. Shall notice recognize beyond the burned, Or caption past the people tritely charred, Related dusty partness with the term Antiquity, the sense of death in stone And knowledge of the previously marred? On battlefields of Troy or Tuscany Or other places where techniques engaged, When warrior fell, or blade or boy enraged, Of them did campfire journalists of song Forget collective going, all but pathos, In wretchedness and fact of having gone? Accuse the gnostic grammar of old wars: It maims our grasp of accidental death Past putting down of papers to decry Their overlooking what it means to die.

There's little joy in life for me, And little terror in the grave; I 've lived the parting hour to see Of one I would have died to save. Calmly to watch the failing breath, Wishing each sigh might be the last; Longing to see the shade of death O'er those belovèd features cast. The cloud, the stillness that must part The darling of my life from me; And then to thank God from my heart, To thank Him well and fervently; Although I knew that we had lost The hope and glory of our life; And now, benighted, tempest-tossed, Must bear alone the weary strife.

Condemned to Hope’s delusive mine, As on we toil from day to day, By sudden blasts, or slow decline, Our social comforts drop away. Well tried through many a varying year, See Levet to the grave descend; Officious, innocent, sincere, Of every friendless name the friend. Yet still he fills Affection’s eye, Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind; Nor, lettered Arrogance, deny Thy praise to merit unrefined. When fainting Nature called for aid, And hovering Death prepared the blow, His vigorous remedy displayed The power of art without the show. In Misery’s darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh, Where hopeless Anguish poured his groan, And lonely Want retired to die. No summons mocked by chill delay, No petty gain disdained by pride, The modest wants of every day The toil of every day supplied. His virtues walked their narrow round, Nor made a pause, nor left a void; And sure the Eternal Master found The single talent well employed. The busy day, the peaceful night, Unfelt, uncounted, glided by; His frame was firm, his powers were bright, Though now his eightieth year was nigh. Then with no throbbing fiery pain, No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way.

We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven, Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell; If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight, Forming a ring, perhaps, or joining hands In games whose very names we have forgotten. Come, memory, let us seek them there in the shadows.

In vain to me the smiling Mornings shine, And reddening Phœbus lifts his golden fire; The birds in vain their amorous descant join; Or cheerful fields resume their green attire; These ears, alas! for other notes repine, A different object do these eyes require; My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine; And in my breast the imperfect joys expire. Yet Morning smiles the busy race to cheer, And new-born pleasure brings to happier men; The fields to all their wonted tribute bear; To warm their little loves the birds complain; I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear, And weep the more because I weep in vain.