3 Poems About Death No visitors allowed– but he speaks cheerfully to the dead who stop by Ashes in the river, name carved on a rock– you have stayed and gone Your blood on my hand– I'm afraid to wash it, but it still fades away
Category: Poems
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3 Poems About Death
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Untitled (2016 Haiku Project)
I wrote a long intro for this one, so if you’d like to skip down to the haiku, just click here. All I’ll say is: haiku are short, but read them slowly. I have put extra space between each one to try to give that sense of space and taking things slow!
In 2016, I was living in Plymouth, Wisconsin. And one of the good things about living in downtown Plymouth was the fact that the Plymouth Arts Center was within easy walking distance. In March of 2016, they had an exhibit of six Wisconsin photographers called Painting With Light…many ways, and I loved it. And something about the photographs made me want to write in a spare, imagistic style, so I spent the duration of that exhibit repeatedly walking down there, sitting in the exhibit space, and writing these haiku (although a few are from the walk there or back as well). A little more information on the exhibit can be found in this old Sheboygan Press article I tracked down with a little help from the kind folks at the PAC.
I also wanted to talk a little bit about what I mean when I say “haiku.” They are not in any strict formula of syllables; I believe that translating a poem into a different language is, if you want to be simply literal, impossible; you are really creating something new. And I believe the same thing is true of translating a poetic form from one language to another.
So what I have below are poems that are in three brief lines, and my goals in this form are trying to write as simply as possible, cutting out whatever is unnecessary, and being as absolutely spare as possible. If the haiku is complete, what should be left is the image; if it is good, what is left is an image that you spend time with. I suppose it is similar to my feelings on photography and why they inspired me in this way. And I will end by saying that there is some joy, as a poet, in considering so minutely each word, on weighing questions of capitalization, on turning a narrowed eye on each punctuation mark; perhaps the same satisfaction that people who work in miniature feel in any art or craft.
why make resolutions? now, everything new is buried by snow. the clouds reflections of clouds both leave us behind the slow river wears away the rock– nothing is still colorless winter– the world as simple as a photograph these rock pillars– are they giants' teeth or dirty fingernails? a flower decaying keeps a terrible beauty around the solid rocks the river, gurgling between fishermen's legs spring tulips bend with the wind– break under my hand in a photograph, train tracks lead nowhere lonely tree, climb down from those rocks– I will sit under you scattered lilies fall apart petal by petal icy trees by a clear lake– the end of winter in the museum, each glass-covered photograph reflects my face Moon, I am also here alone the church doors locked! a no loitering sign outside the museum. farther, trees fade into forest, clouds into sky how many hermit caves in these cliffs, how many empty skulls? on the highest branch, that smug crow is free to make noise the snow is creeping down the mountains soon, winter is here solitary, twisting tree– can't decide which direction to reach out at dusk in the distance the cloud-mountains appear not a shivering songbird locked inside my ribs but a black crow, laughing drunk he fell off the bridge and landed in the stars
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Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Beautiful glacier scar across the land—
love is always dangerous
and deep.
One moment, your toes are curled
in cool sand, the sun
warming your forehead.
Then, without warning, the current comes—
it’s no use trying to swim back
to shore.
Whatever strength you thought you had,
this requires a different kind—
to see safety
and not reach for it, to strike out instead
along the coast, deep waters and the sight
of land,
hope and fear and exhilaration curled up together
in your chest— if you are the kind of person who falls in love
with a scar.
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Listening To The Snow
Listening To The Snow Go to sleep, go to sleep. Let us cover up all the harsh edges of the world. Let us settle over the dead and unburied, Let our deep drifts pile against your gravestones and erase the dates, and then the names. When you think of one, you think of all the dead - They are no more separate than we are. Listen to what we show you: this white silence. Go to sleep, go to sleep.
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The Fool
The Fool If I could paint, this is what I would paint tonight: A great black dog leaping across the sky, body stretched the way a dog’s body stretches in the moment during running when all its paws have left the ground, the moment when it decides against gravity, but instead to reach for the full moon, take it in its jaws and hold on tight while the stars stream off its fur like water. Now I see there is a person, too, standing on its back like a circus performer, arms outstretched for balance, a wild grin on their face. I am not the performer, not the dog, the moon, or even the painter. Yet here I am, standing in the moonlight, grinning like a fool.
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Sheboygan
Sheboygan We made a spot in the center of the city: here, it will be green. We trained our flowers to grow up trellises, to mark out our paths. Behind us, Lake Michigan creeps closer and closer. Don’t turn around, don’t look. You know what happens in the stories to the child who leaves the path. You’ve seen them at night, in your dreams, dancing wide-eyed at the bottom of the lake.
My notes: I love the Great Lakes immensely. Maybe this is partially from growing up in the middle of nowhere in Northern Michigan, but nature always has both sides to me – it’s awe-inspiring, which means it’s awesome and awful. But I think the key to how I see it is that these aren’t “two sides to the same coin” or something like that – that’s too separate. The danger of it is part of what makes it beautiful. The fact that it’s beautiful is part of what makes it dangerous. But you know, at this point I’m just rambling philosophically about things I’d rather try to express in poetry.
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you left it too late again
like a glass of water with a film of dust like a jug of milk with a rancid smell like a soft potato spotted with mold like a flower that’s lost its crown an empty closet a suitcase gone an unread letter on a petal-strewn table
I don’t write that much poetry that’s completely without punctuation or capitalization, but it felt right for this one, where… I suppose I would say that the speaker doesn’t even have the energy for either of those things.
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Wherever You Are, Look
Wherever You Are, Look Wherever you are, look out the window (please let there be a window)— at the sky, at something green if you can find it; This world can't exist just to grind us down, I refuse to believe it. And if I'm wrong, at least let me be ground down not by concrete and rulers— Let me be crushed under the weight of a mountain, the sight of a storm and the towering, lightning-cracked redwood.
The view out my window right now is… uninspiring, to say the least. I can see a single tree off in the distance; the rest is all concrete. There are a lot of advantages to living downtown, but I am still a backwoods person when it comes down to it, I suppose!
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Passport for the Dead (Crossing the Lethe)
Passport for the Dead (Crossing the Lethe) to be tucked into a pocket before burial Take all that is good with you: Bright, clear sunshine, The snap of fresh green peas, Watermelon in summer, Thick stew in winter, And running dogs, tongues hanging out – Fires in cold weather – Sitting thigh-to-thigh – Warm rain like tears – And a flask of our river water Drink only from this – Refuse all other waters! Please don’t forget Please remember I will be with you soon
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A Love Poem
A Love Poem You tell me only a fool loves the desert. If I ride in there, that’s it– there’s no coming back. Maybe I’d rather leave my bleached bones to be scoured clean by sand Than have them rest in the cool, dark earth next to you
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Leaving
Leaving Every day now, she stares a little bit past him, Focusing her eyes on a calendar behind his head Or, just over his right ear, the street out the window. Some evenings, after work, she stays on the bus, Her stop passing by outside the window, Heading out and then walking back in the twilight. She is practicing walking past her life— Up the street, around the block— For the day she doesn’t turn back.
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Walking In the Separate Dark
Walking In the Separate Dark Blue second-story lights Of waking dreamers and insomniacs Factory shift-workers Unemployed night-owls People lying in beds Who can’t go on People sitting in chairs Who can’t not go on Although they have nothing else Each light Is as far apart As a star Somewhere, a baby is crying A tired woman picks it up And holds it to her breast
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When I’m Gone
When I’m Gone Bury my bones by the corner of your house At night, when you’re asleep I will dance my skeleton dance What nightmare will dare come near you Past the music of my bones?
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The Man Who Nearly Drowned
The Man Who Nearly Drowned From that time on, his stories grew stranger Of the time he met the talking crow And the pine tree full of dancing girls And the green city that lay in the lake Which could only be reached by holding your breath And believing, which nobody did but him And then he could no longer go out alone To stand on the shore and stare at the lake It’s one thing to talk to the talking crow And another to walk out and sink like a stone While the bubbles behind you rise towards the light And to pick out a hint of green in the dark They’re moving him now to a different state Where the ocean’s green grass and the city’s bright steel And the girls all dance on a certain street And the light in his eyes is a stranger’s pen As he sits very still and hears in his head The familiar sound of his rushing blood And he thinks of the folly of trusting a crow And believing a thing that won’t stay on the ground As the wind brings no smell of the sea
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Authority
Authority is a nineteen-year-old boy with short-cropped hair and stubby fingers and a uniform and a gun he is watching a woman his eyes wide she is younger than she looks squatting by the metal fence what is the worst that can happen if he ignores her what is the worst that can happen if he acts he shifts his weight like a nervous student one with an important test the teacher forgot to attend and what is she doing neither laughing nor crying her whispering is too soft to be called singing
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After Blake
After Blake I wanted to see his tree full of angels, To follow him outside, To find the edge of the curtain, To pull it back and watch the dancers Rehearsing – faces filled with Beautiful concentration – On the joining of bones, on the smooth Perfect fit in the socket, The miracle of the hip, the ankle, The delicate swiveling wrist – No, I am the only one Thinking of bones! Behind their closed eyes Is only music –
This poem now also available to watch right here, and a visual version of the text here.
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The Empty Palace
The cow, the hot sun,
the statue of the man
who died in a duel,
the things I'm not allowed
to say, the dusty bench,
the fountain, the park
empty, the hospital empty
gleaming marble and gold,
the people allowed to cry
on TV and the people
not allowed to cry,
the grand steps, the arch
of heavy stone, the rooms
filled with slanting sunlight,
not a soul in sight.Another quite old one to share!
