437 Death poems

At last I entered a long dark gallery, Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the side Were the bodies of men from far and wide Who, motion past, were nevertheless not dead. "The sense of waiting here strikes strong; Everyone's waiting, waiting, it seems to me; What are you waiting for so long? — What is to happen?" I said. "O we are waiting for one called God," said they, "(Though by some the Will, or Force, or Laws; And, vaguely, by some, the Ultimate Cause;) Waiting for him to see us before we are clay. Yes; waiting, waiting, for God to know it." ... "To know what?" questioned I. "To know how things have been going on earth and below it: It is clear he must know some day." I thereon asked them why. "Since he made us humble pioneers Of himself in consciousness of Life's tears, It needs no mighty prophecy To tell that what he could mindlessly show His creatures, he himself will know. "By some still close-cowled mystery We have reached feeling faster than he, But he will overtake us anon, If the world goes on."

A 29-year-old stewardess fell ... to her death tonight when she was swept through an emergency door that sud- denly sprang open ... The body ... was found ... three hours after the accident. — New York Times The states when they black out and lie there rolling    when they turn To something transcontinental    move by    drawing moonlight out of the great One-sided stone hung off the starboard wingtip    some sleeper next to An engine is groaning for coffee    and there is faintly coming in Somewhere the vast beast-whistle of space. In the galley with its racks Of trays    she rummages for a blanket    and moves in her slim tailored Uniform to pin it over the cry at the top of the door. As though she blew The door down with a silent blast from her lungs    frozen    she is black Out finding herself    with the plane nowhere and her body taken by the throat The undying cry of the void    falling    living    beginning to be something That no one has ever been and lived through    screaming without enough air Still neat    lipsticked    stockinged    girdled by regulation    her hat Still on    her arms and legs in no world    and yet spaced also strangely With utter placid rightness on thin air    taking her time    she holds it In many places    and now, still thousands of feet from her death she seems To slow    she develops interest    she turns in her maneuverable body To watch it. She is hung high up in the overwhelming middle of things in her Self    in low body-whistling wrapped intensely    in all her dark dance-weight Coming down from a marvellous leap    with the delaying, dumfounding ease Of a dream of being drawn    like endless moonlight to the harvest soil Of a central state of one’s country    with a great gradual warmth coming Over her    floating    finding more and more breath in what she has been using For breath    as the levels become more human    seeing clouds placed honestly Below her left and right    riding slowly toward them    she clasps it all To her and can hang her hands and feet in it in peculiar ways    and Her eyes opened wide by wind, can open her mouth as wide    wider and suck All the heat from the cornfields    can go down on her back with a feeling Of stupendous pillows stacked under her    and can turn    turn as to someone In bed    smile, understood in darkness    can go away    slant    slide Off tumbling    into the emblem of a bird with its wings half-spread Or whirl madly on herself    in endless gymnastics in the growing warmth Of wheatfields rising toward the harvest moon.    There is time to live In superhuman health    seeing mortal unreachable lights far down seeing An ultimate highway with one late priceless car probing it    arriving In a square town    and off her starboard arm the glitter of water catches The moon by its one shaken side    scaled, roaming silver    My God it is good And evil    lying in one after another of all the positions for love Making    dancing    sleeping    and now cloud wisps at her no Raincoat    no matter    all small towns brokenly brighter from inside Cloud    she walks over them like rain    bursts out to behold a Greyhound Bus shooting light through its sides    it is the signal to go straight Down like a glorious diver    then feet first    her skirt stripped beautifully Up    her face in fear-scented cloths    her legs deliriously bare    then Arms out    she slow-rolls over    steadies out    waits for something great To take control of her    trembles near feathers    planes head-down The quick movements of bird-necks turning her head    gold eyes the insight- eyesight of owls blazing into the hencoops    a taste for chicken overwhelming Her    the long-range vision of hawks enlarging all human lights of cars Freight trains    looped bridges    enlarging the moon racing slowly Through all the curves of a river    all the darks of the midwest blazing From above. A rabbit in a bush turns white    the smothering chickens Huddle    for over them there is still time for something to live With the streaming half-idea of a long stoop    a hurtling    a fall That is controlled    that plummets as it wills    turns gravity Into a new condition, showing its other side like a moon    shining New Powers    there is still time to live on a breath made of nothing But the whole night    time for her to remember to arrange her skirt Like a diagram of a bat    tightly it guides her    she has this flying-skin Made of garments    and there are also those sky-divers on tv sailing In sunlight    smiling under their goggles    swapping batons back and forth And He who jumped without a chute and was handed one by a diving Buddy. She looks for her grinning companion    white teeth    nowhere She is screaming    singing hymns    her thin human wings spread out From her neat shoulders    the air beast-crooning to her    warbling And she can no longer behold the huge partial form of the world    now She is watching her country lose its evoked master shape    watching it lose And gain    get back its houses and peoples    watching it bring up Its local lights    single homes    lamps on barn roofs    if she fell Into water she might live    like a diver    cleaving    perfect    plunge Into another    heavy silver    unbreathable    slowing    saving Element: there is water    there is time to perfect all the fine Points of diving    feet together    toes pointed    hands shaped right To insert her into water like a needle    to come out healthily dripping And be handed a Coca-Cola    there they are    there are the waters Of life    the moon packed and coiled in a reservoir    so let me begin To plane across the night air of Kansas    opening my eyes superhumanly Bright    to the damned moon    opening the natural wings of my jacket By Don Loper    moving like a hunting owl toward the glitter of water One cannot

“A skeleton’s mouth makes few concessions to prettiness.” —Jacques Joubert Because your mouth is violet and you cannot speak Because maybe I like Thursdays the way I used to hate baths, and baths are boundaries whose sharpness will be blurred with more information Because movement itself is a form of currency Frozen in articulations Because don’t indulge yourself in the idea of restraint The blackened patches could have been pubic hair on dead bodies, or simply the wildness of neglect without horizons or spaces Because it’s a comfort to know waste is the fuel of contradictions a knife rusted before its first use Because in the barest of rooms, nothing is comprehensible Neither fanatic nor mystic Because the first weeks of September came and went and the weather held Not woven by innocent hands Because this stasis is preparation Because you’re deceased, maimed or in Philadelphia

I laid the strewings, darling, on thine urn; I lowered the torch, I poured the cup to Dis. Now hushaby, my little child, and learn Long sleep how good it is. In vain thy mother prays, wayfaring hence, Peace to her heart, where only heartaches dwell; But thou more blest, O mild intelligence! Forget her, and Farewell.

Give me a few more hours to pass With the mellow flower of the elm-bough falling, And then no more than the lonely grass And the birds calling. Give me a few more days to keep With a little love and a little sorrow, And then the dawn in the skies of sleep And a clear to-morrow. Give me a few more years to fill With a little work and a little lending, And then the night on a starry hill And the road's ending.

A sound-loop hangs from the white gallows of the page: letter j strung up, the crook of her foot postmortem— leg sway. Mouth retches a vowelround o then from the roof gasps           a dark l slung. Is not innocent: the i with a white noose also around his neck, blindfolded, asphyxiated. Spaces within                    words are                       miniature knots that suspend letters— the paper always tightening.

Doomed beauties, my companions, my familiars, your long arms braceleted with snakes of danger, a questions twines in all the undergrowth. How can we tell the living from the dead? Puvis de Chavanne’s tall pearly figures dressed as sturdy Spartans at the chase turn out to be pale paper dolls in space. And how can we be sure that we’re alive? Our bodies, aging, changing, slow and stiffen. On flesh if not yet quite inert increasingly opaque, bite or bruise or blemish pose the questions Where have you been? What have you been doing? My sister’s leg, scaled by a manic cat nearly three years ago, still is scored and punctured. Last September I picked blackberries bare-armed; here are the scratches ten weeks later. We are passing through the world. This is some of what it does to us.

There is a spectacle and something is added to history. It has as its object an indiscretion: old age, a gun, the prevention of sleep. I am placed in its stead and the requisite shadow is yours. It casts across me, a violent coat. It seems I fit into its sleeve. So the body wanders. Sometime it goes where light does not reach. You recall how they moved in the moon dust?Hop, hop. What they said to us from that distance was stupid. They did not say I love you for example. The spectacle has been placed in my room. Can you hear its episode trailing, pretending to be a thing with variegated wings? Do you know the name of this thing? It is a rubbing from an image. The subject of the image is that which trespasses. You are invited to watch. The body in complete dark casting nothing back. The thing turns and flicks and opens.

The woman is perfected. Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment, The illusion of a Greek necessity Flows in the scrolls of her toga, Her bare Feet seem to be saying: We have come so far, it is over. Each dead child coiled, a white serpent, One at each little Pitcher of milk, now empty. She has folded Them back into her body as petals Of a rose close when the garden Stiffens and odors bleed From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower. The moon has nothing to be sad about, Staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.

What to do with this knowledge that our living is not guaranteed? Perhaps one day you touch the young branch of something beautiful. & it grows & grows despite your birthdays & the death certificate, & it one day shades the heads of something beautiful or makes itself useful to the nest. Walk out of your house, then, believing in this. Nothing else matters. All above us is the touching of strangers & parrots, some of them human, some of them not human. Listen to me. I am telling you a true thing. This is the only kingdom. The kingdom of touching; the touches of the disappearing, things.