POETRY
Samples > Stances In Time
Death Don’t You Dare
It is not death I fear-
I have, after all, come to terms
With nightly visits to its dreamy sidekick,
Where I have no free will.
My brain concocts a landscape Of unfamiliar collages, unremembered;
Why should death be any different?
At my bedside is the fantastic fairy tale
I’m reading, I have a few chapters left...
And how will it all end?
Will it be bacchanal, an extravaganza?
Or philosophizing not so happily ever after?
You must agree for this alone I need to be alive But to die in the middle of the story,
O come on now Death, no reason for cruelty!
How could you send me into that starry oblivion
Not knowing if the magic spell was broken?
And yes, I’m off to the concert hall again
Yet another Resurrection Symphony;
I’m urgently trying to cop the magic moments,
Like passport stamps, or vouchers.
There is still space in the carry-on luggage
That I’m packing to be with me in the grave.
But also, I keep on reminding myself,
Day after day, I keep on reminding myself,
It’s been 50 years since I read Rimbaud or Blake.
I must go back and have them fresh in my head
Before I’ll accept anything singularly disruptive
As death
Souvenirs
The secret lives of souvenirs
Born the moment of possession
Verify our voyages fading
Down the waterfalls of time.
Treasured for their native soils,
Cluttering shelves with bric-a-brac
They share the walls with photographs,
Posters, maps, African masks...
These are sacred to you and you alone,
Clues to the puzzle of passing time,
Leaving a burden for your descendants
Who have too many of their own,
To donate, sell, or throw away-
But maybe keep a coin or jewel
Bestowed to the next of kin
For the union of holiness within.