Death and Poetry

My poem "Death and Poetry" is the featured poem of the day at Rattle today. The title makes the poem sound gloomy but I don't think it is -- but maybe I have a high gloominess threshold. Anyway, you can read the poem here and also hear me read it. There's a link after the poem for the audio version of the poem. Just click on it and my voice will come booming through. Thanks to the editor Timothy Green for setting all this up.

 

DEATH AND POETRY

Somewhere there are shadows,

My mother in a doorway, my father

Standing by a fence. You must have

Your own shadows. The dead in one

Another’s arms. The black hearse.

Someone you love behind the curtains.

I remember Abbott and Costello,

Two dead comedians, joking about curtains:

“It’s curtains for me, curtains for you,”

Then the curtains part and the killer

Appears and says, “Slowly I turn,”

But it’s never slowly enough,

And suddenly you’re there

With your own dead and your own

Dying, and nothing feels closer to you

Than the wow moment when you won’t

Be you but some scattered, tattered

Discombobulation of purposeless ions,

The dust that suddenly is last week’s lunch

And this week’s memories of everything

That will not last, and you’re not laughing

Although you once did at Abbott and Costello

Or maybe it was the Three Stooges grinding

On about how slowly death comes.

Less carriage ride than bullet, it’s here now

And all of these words are so purposeless

That it’s a good thing I’m writing all of this

Down now because if I were to wait

Until the moment of my own death

I would just wave these words away.

 

Click here to hear: http://www.rattle.com/audio/GuzlowskiDeath.mp3