DEATH/Rainer Maria Rilke

Death by Rainer Maria Rilke Issue no. 82 (Winter 1981)There stands death, a bluish distillate in a cup without a saucer. Such a strange place to find a cup: standing on the back of a hand. One recognizes clearly the line along the glazed curve, where the handle snapped. Covered with dust. And Hope is written across the side, in a faded Gothic script.The man who was to drink out of that cup read it aloud at breakfast, long ago. What kind of beings are they then, who finally must be scared away by poison? Otherwise would they stay here? Would they keep chewing so foolishly on their own frustration? The hard present moment must be pulled out of them, like a set of false teeth. Then they mumble. Then they go on mumbling. . . O falling star, once seen into from a bridge—: Not to forget you. To endure

TRICKLE DOWN VOODOO ANTICS

We say bad things about people who hurt us.

That way they’d let up to haunt & to curse us.

We didn’t dismiss their nonsense,

just cruelly,

We vent  and vanquish their malevolence.

& thus  Renewal.

Try Another Dawn, Against Green Leather, On

I take my ten tablets.

Wash  ’em w/ Irish.

It’s my time

for medicine,

& no time for nonsense.

I’m ready I’ll try to pull hard

for a merciful god.

Finally I’ll try my hand

To move a pen

To move my words

To move me.

.

.

.

.                                  (from 2009, Slainte.)

IMPALPABLE

  

 

Neruda’s ” impalpable ash”

Chants away/

In the fray of my own tiny ruins.

.

“If I touch/ near the fire/

Impalpable ash..”

Chimes away/

And supports the clearing away  all

Insubstantial,

Makes way to take less blinding steps away

From  cave  to  climax

I’ve come to have left out

Crucial  rescue  tools

From my matutinal

Lost-combination locked bag of tricks.

In touch  information

Out

 

“COULD HAVE” –Wislawa Szymborska

It could have happened

It had to happen./It happened earlier. Later.

Nearer. Farther off.

It happened, but not to you.

You were saved because you were the first.

You were saved because you were the last.

Alone. With others.

On the right. The left.

Because it was raining. Because of the shade.

Because the day was sunny.                                                                                                                     

You were in luck — there was a forest.

You were in luck — there were no trees.

You were in luck — a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,

A jamb, a turn, a quarter-inch, an instant . . .

So you’re here? Still dizzy from

another dodge, close shave, reprieve?

One hole in the net and you slipped through?

I couldn’t be more shocked or

speechless.

Listen,

how your heart pounds inside me.

Wislawa Szymborska

Submitted: F

Goings On In Glass