Bellwether
I could expect to age
or boil over
a compass busy with the north
napping in a riot
having been rescued from the dead
I know no certainty
Poems on the topic: death
Poems on the topic “death” on Poets.by.
Street culture
not liking the horse desire
I walk out
not liking death
I eat a piece of pie
who lives in an outhouse
so he would not be seen
thrust his head
into the grave
we drink and talk
and read verses in the street
Hawking
a wing coming from sea
at the death of a master
a great gust calling
our thoughts away
Small time
among the dead I could be
a sorry stranger
but I consider providence
from the bottom of a clock
Axe
It was late. The lamplight gelled around you
like pine sap thickening into amber.
You were forgetting how to read, losing words
in the exact reverse order of how you learned them decades before,
until the book open on your lap seemed
as blankly comforting as a glass of milk.
Death had come, but not for the reasons usually alleged.
He found himself enchanted by your bones,
which were light as piccolos, & your skull’s smile
faintly visible under the skin
like a subliminal advertisement for eternal spring.
The clock stopped in mid-tick.
Your eyes took on a faraway look.
Was I supposed to run after you? I was tired.
My trademark guitar had long since gone electric –
an axe, as they say.
Burial
we bury her
in her fine clothes
rain doting on the ice
Polished
a body in a grave is without
any breach of civility
though its mouth
is all drawn in
like what teemed
at so late a supper
Six feet down
this grave I occupy
you may have after me
by accident or angel
like a long last word
I could not say and so
must be
Little death song
at the undertaker’s I
shall lie in the light
I shall have no body
to give to age to tend
Endarkenment
morning comes white among great
supplies of visions
all seeming to save us
and yet my one head
being out this night
is a thriving ship of the dead
Utopian
where the plague grows
where desires make a rough freight
promise me night comes to pay
one day
Inmate
I have gone good and dull
left alone in a hole
caution now used
against any door
to another time where it seems
I fell down dead
but am pretty well
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