18 posts tagged “death”

Memoriam

In lawn chairs under stars.  On the dock
at midnight, anchored by winter clothes,
we lean back to read the sky.  Your face white
in the womb light, the lake's electric skin.

Driving home from Lewiston, full and blue, the moon
over one shoulder of highway.  There,
or in your kitchen at midnight, sitting anywhere
in the seeping dark, we bury them again and
again under the same luminous thumbprint.

The dead leave us starving with mouths full of love.

There stones are salt and mark where we look back.
Your mother's hand at the end of an empty sleeve,
scratching at your palm, drawing blood.
Your aunt in a Jewish graveyard in Poland,
her face a permanent fist of pain.
Your first friend, Saul, who died faster than
you could say forgive me.
When I was nine and crying from a dream
you said words that hid my fear.
Above us the family slept on,
mouths open, hands scrolled.
Twenty years later your tears burn the back of my throat.
Memory has a hand in the grave up to the wrist.
Earth crumbles from your fist under the sky's black sieve.
We are orphaned, one by one.

On the beach at Superior, you found me
where I'd been for hours, cut by the lake's sharp rim.
You stopped a dozen feet from me.
What passed in the quiet said:
I have nothing to give you.

At dusk, birch forest is a shore of bones.
I've pulled stones from the earth's black pockets,
felt the weight of their weariness - worn,
exhausted from their sleep in the earth.
I've written on my skin with their black sweat.

The lake's slight movement is stilled by fading light.
Soon the stars' tiny mouths, the moon's blue mouth.

I have nothing to give you, nothing to carry,
some words to make me less afraid, to say
you gave me this.
Memory insists with its sea voice,
muttering from its bone cave.
Memory wraps us
like the shell wraps the sea.
Nothing to carry,
some stones to fill our pockets,
to give weight to what we have.

Anne Michaels

Marina
Quis hic locus, quae
regio, quae mundi plaga?

What seas what shores what grey rocks and what
     islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through
     the fog
What images return
O my daughter.

Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning
Death
Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird,
     meaning
Death
Those who sit in the stye of contentment, meaning
Death
Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning
Death

Are become unsubstantial, reduced by wind,
A breath of pine, and woodsong fog
By the grace dissolved in place

What is this face, less clear and clearer
The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger--
Given or lent?  more distant than stars and nearer
     than the eye

Whispers and small laughter between leaves and
     hurrying feet
Under sleep, where all the waters meet.
Bowsprit cracked with ice and paint cracked with heat.
I made this, I have forgotten
And remember.
The rigging weak and the canvas rotten
Between one June and another September.
Made this unknowing, half conscious, unknown, my
     own.
The garboard strake leaks, the seams need caulking.
This form, this face, this life
Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me
Resign my life for this life, my speech for that un--
     spoken,
The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.

What seas what shores what granite islands towards my
     timbers
And woodthrush calling through the fog
My daughter.

T. S. Eliot

Abelard and Heloise in the Afterlife

“Look Heloise!”

Abelard points a wispy finger

through pink pontoon clouds

over the green hills

with their dying crickets.

Night comes on

like a dark plum

against the rain-swollen lake.

He likes to point out this time of day,

as if she wouldn't otherwise notice

She also has something to share

“Remember how the lake ate the boy

who was pale and good as

an onion bulb?”

She always remembers the deaths

he forgets

She begins to doze and dream

of an aborigine man

a negative image

Abelard yanks the sleeve

of her midnight habit

“Let me cram it in dear

and I will curl in a bliss egg

for eternity”

Abelard is no longer suave

He's lost his cool

metaphysical reserve

He puckers his lips

the last glow of orange

upon the horizon

trying to smooch the

white cloud of her cheek

“Remember how my uncle

cauterized your manhood?

I tried to kiss the scars.”

He will not acknowledge her

and she is in no mood tonight

“It is too late to love me now.”

Heloise's tongue awakens

over the earth

like a misty dragon

She would lift throat in wailing song,

and grow roots, wet

and bearded into the earth

Her transformation is beginning

8/11/2006 Lucy Simpson Colorado

revised 8/23/2009, Seattle

The sons have seen their father's naked

skins of ancient parchment

the blind fathers

the eyes' portals

curtained by a paste

the sons have brought water

to the cracked mouths

and wet towels

to the anus' flower

a cricket's song

comes out the throat

and every orifice opens

in preparation for the journey

Lucy Simpson, Colorado Springs, 6/25/05, revised 8/3/2009

  "What's to become of us? How are we to support our poor

children, now that we have nothing more for ourselves?”

Lang, Andrew, ed. “Hansel and Gretel.” The Blue Fairy

Book. New York: Dover, 1965.

Hansel in the Woods

found we wandering

                    weathered bones

sisters, brothers

                    dead, dead

before sun falls,

                    black branches gleam

squish wet leaves

                    squish, squish

sisters and brothers:

                    forest feral

running fox-wild

                    stink and fur

bit to bone

finger this jaw

                    heart-shaped teeth

brother's grin

                    charming mother

mother charming

vulpine panting

                    tongue dry once pink

resonate his thoughts

                    in bone-cracks

I say prayers I was taught

                    by father

who has forsaken

                    me he has

never live past nine

                    mother's children

sacrificed to trees

                    older ones gobble

greedy gobblers

babies fear and love her

                    fear and love

great goddess-mother

                    giver and taker

Gretel little

                    gives to me

crust of bread

                    dry in mouth

last food

I am walking in woods

                    do not know

when free comes

                    a wing from a tree

Lucy Simpson, Seattle, revised 12/2008

“What's to become of us? How are we to support our poor

children, now that we have nothing more for ourselves?”

Lang, Andrew, ed. “Hansel and Gretel.” The Blue Fairy

Book. New York: Dover, 1965.

the fox children

we have found in our wandering

weathered bones

of sisters, of brothers

before snow falls,

wet black branches gleam

dun leaves squish

sisters and brothers:

forest made feral

running like foxes

fur and stink

finger this jaw

heart-shaped teeth

my older brother's grin

used to charm mother

panting vulpine distress

dripping tongue once pink

the thoughts of him resonate

in the bone-cracks

I say prayers like I was taught

by father who has forsaken me

they never live past nine

mother's children

we must be sacrificed

for the older ones gobble too much

the babies fear and love her

great goddess-mother

giver and taker of life

Little Gretel, she gives to me

as a kindness

a burden

in this journey

I am traveling in the woods

and I do not know

when I will be free

Vasilissa Journeys

“She lived alone and none dared go near the hut, for she

ate people as one eats chickens.” Russian Wonder Tales.

New York: The Century Company, 1912.

Mother sends me to fetch light

from carnivorous Auntie,

who dwells in the charnel hut

with rattle leg-bones of dancing peasants

and clacking jaws of choristers.

Better girls flee to the cloisters

with their flesh-burdens

into honey-combs of stone

with white whimpled nuns

buzzing prayers.

Ugly withered onion,

marsh reed limbs,

it breathes between my rose-buds,

my own flesh burden.

I open my rags.

Its head is a warm miniature

of the moon above,

a turnip in the pot,

a curved seashell.

I walk the stone path.

Feet in thin soles

feel each cold marker,

frost needles.

Small breasts fill, yet baby lays still,

shut tight against the light,

its eyes, blind pearls.

The hut spins on hen legs.

Each skull lights eye-sockets

to greet me.

A thin voice,

meager as a pumpkin seed,

welcomes me home.

Auntie comes silent,

creeping edgewise to the fence,

her back curved like a basket

that holds mending.

One obsidian eye turns upward,

insect-like, to meet my gaze

Her hair is the late fall raiment

of withered branches.

The old woman smiles.

There are no teeth,

only a black hole

that goes on forever.

Lucy Simpson

Earth, Take Me Back

I have been dying a long time

In this cool valley-land, this green bowl ringed by hills--

The cup of a giant flower whose petals are

These forests round about, still wet

From the fresh April rains.

Night draws on. It is growing dark.

The trees are silent. The hills are dark and silent.

All things fall silent, or look the other way,

When you are dying.

There is a delicate haze over everything.

Soft clouds are floating like water-lily pads

On the dark pool of the sky. Between them

Stars come out. . .

I was the princess

this is my story

I was once weighted under finery

every gem an eye in my gown

every eyelet a wound

I wore slippers with sharp heels

and had sharper nails

red as arterial spray

and my eyes were

paler than water

my hair was spun gold

and my voice

the tinkling of glass

or ice in a glass

or something enchanting

he was all lies

and honey

rough-furred

under damask

he was a wolf in prince garb

he led me down to the waters

from which I did not rise

for a few moons

till I turned green

as moss upon a stone

till I knew which way was north

I rose up one night

as the moon was blistering

a skin of milk in the pot

of the black, black night

I rose up all twisted

my own enemy

I am always trying to get him

but I keep hurting my younger self

I advise her not to walk the path

I went down

the path to the waters

with the wolf prince

but she never listens

I am not her anymore

and she is not yet me

Lucy Simpson

Seattle

11/2008