Kaddish, Part I
Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on
the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village.
downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I've been up all night, talking,
talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues
shout blind on the phonograph
the rhythm the rhythm--and your memory in my head three years after--
And read Adonais' last triumphant stanzas aloud--wept, realizing
how we suffer--
And how Death is that remedy all singers dream of, sing, remember,
prophesy as in the Hebrew Anthem, or the Buddhist Book of An-
swers--and my own imagination of a withered leaf--at dawn--
Dreaming back thru life, Your time--and mine accelerating toward Apoca-
lypse,
the final moment--the flower burning in the Day--and what comes after,
looking back on the mind itself that saw an American city
a flash away, and the great dream of Me or China, or you and a phantom
Russia, or a crumpled bed that never existed--
like a poem in the dark--escaped back to Oblivion--
No more to say, and nothing to weep for but the Beings in the Dream,
trapped in its disappearance,
sighing, screaming with it, buying and selling pieces of phantom, worship-
ping each other,
worshipping the God included in it all--longing or inevitability?--while it
lasts, a Vision--anything more?
It leaps about me, as I go out and walk the street, look back over my shoulder,
Seventh Avenue, the battlements of window office buildings shoul-
dering each other high, under a cloud, tall as the sky an instant--and
the sky above--an old blue place.
or down the Avenue to the south, to--as I walk toward the Lower East Side
--where you walked 50 years ago, little girl--from Russia, eating the
first poisonous tomatoes of America frightened on the dock
then struggling in the crowds of Orchard Street toward what?--toward
Newark--
toward candy store, first home-made sodas of the century, hand-churned ice
cream in backroom on musty brownfloor boards--
Toward education marriage nervous breakdown, operation, teaching school,
and learning to be mad, in a dream--what is this life?
Toward the Key in the window--and the great Key lays its head of light
on top of Manhattan, and over the floor, and lays down on the
sidewalk--in a single vast beam, moving, as I walk down First toward
the Yiddish Theater--and the place of poverty
you knew, and I know, but without caring now--Strange to have moved
thru Paterson, and the West, and Europe and here again,
with the cries of Spaniards now in the doorstops doors and dark boys on
the street, firs escapes old as you
--Tho you're not old now, that's left here with me--
Myself, anyhow, maybe as old as the universe--and I guess that dies with
us--enough to cancel all that comes--What came is gone forever
every time--
That's good!That leaves it open for no regret--no fear radiators, lacklove,
torture even toothache in the end--
Though while it comes it is a lion that eats the soul--and the lamb, the soul,
in us, alas, offering itself in sacrifice to change's fierce hunger--hair
and teeth--and the roar of bonepain, skull bare, break rib, rot-skin,
braintricked Implacability.
Ai! ai!we do worse! We are in a fix!And you're out, Death let you out,
Death had the Mercy, you're done with your century, done with
God, done with the path thru it--Done with yourself at last--Pure
--Back to the Babe dark before your Father, before us all--before the
world--
There, rest.No more suffering for you.I know where you've gone, it's good.
No more flowers in the summer fields of New York, no joy now, no more
fear of Louis,
and no more of his sweetness and glasses, his high school decades, debts,
loves, frightened telephone calls, conception beds, relatives, hands--
No more of sister Elanor,--she gone before you--we kept it secret you
killed her--or she killed herself to bear with you--an arthritic heart
--But Death's killed you both--No matter--
Nor your memory of your mother, 1915 tears in silent movies weeks and
weeks--forgetting, agrieve watching Marie Dressler address human-
ity, Chaplin dance in youth,
or Boris Godunov, Chaliapin's at the Met, halling his voice of a weeping Czar
--by standing room with Elanor & Max--watching also the Capital
ists take seats in Orchestra, white furs, diamonds,
with the YPSL's hitch-hiking thru Pennsylvania, in black baggy gym skirts
pants, photograph of 4 girls holding each other round the waste, and
laughing eye, too coy, virginal solitude of 1920
all girls grown old, or dead now, and that long hair in the grave--lucky to
have husbands later--
You made it--I came too--Eugene my brother before (still grieving now and
will gream on to his last stiff hand, as he goes thru his cancer--or kill
--later perhaps--soon he will think--)
And it's the last moment I remember, which I see them all, thru myself, now
--tho not you
I didn't foresee what you felt--what more hideous gape of bad mouth came
first--to you--and were you prepared?
To go where?In that Dark--that--in that God? a radiance? A Lord in the
Void?Like an eye in the black cloud in a dream?Adonoi at last, with
you?
Beyond my remembrance! Incapable to guess! Not merely the yellow skull
in the grave, or a box of worm dust, and a stained ribbon--Deaths-
head with Halo?can you believe it?
Is it only the sun that shines once for the mind, only the flash of existence,
than none ever was?
Nothing beyond what we have--what you had--that so pitiful--yet Tri-
umph,
to have been here, and changed, like a tree, broken, or flower--fed to the
ground--but made, with its petals, colored, thinking Great Universe,
shaken, cut in the head, leaf stript, hid in an egg crate hospital, cloth
wrapped, sore--freaked in the moon brain, Naughtless.
No flower like that flower, which knew itself in the garden, and fought the
knife--lost
Cut down by an idiot Snowman's icy--even in the Spring--strange ghost
thought some--Death--Sharp icicle in his hand--crowned with old
roses--a dog for his eyes--cock of a sweatshop--heart of electric
irons.
All the accumulations of life, that wear us out--clocks, bodies, consciousness,
shoes, breasts--begotten sons--your Communism--'Paranoia' into
hospitals.
You once kicked Elanor in the leg, she died of heart failure later.You of
stroke.Asleep?within a year, the two of you, sisters in death.Is
Elanor happy?
Max grieves alive in an office on Lower Broadway, lone large mustache over
midnight Accountings, not sure.His life passes--as he sees--and
what does he doubt now?Still dream of making money, or that might
have made money, hired nurse, had children, found even your Im-
mortality, Naomi?
I'll see him soon.Now I've got to cut through to talk to you as I didn't
when you had a mouth.
Forever.And we're bound for that, Forever like Emily Dickinson's horses
--headed to the End.
They know the way--These Steeds--run faster than we think--it's our own
life they cross--and take with them.
Magnificent, mourned no more, marred of heart, mind behind, mar-
ried dreamed, mortal changed--Ass and face done with murder.
In the world, given, flower maddened, made no Utopia, shut under
pine, almed in Earth, blamed in Lone, Jehovah, accept.
Nameless, One Faced, Forever beyond me, beginningless, endless,
Father in death.Tho I am not there for this Prophecy, I am unmarried, I'm
hymnless, I'm Heavenless, headless in blisshood I would still adore
Thee, Heaven, after Death, only One blessed in Nothingness, not
light or darkness, Dayless Eternity--
Take this, this Psalm, from me, burst from my hand in a day, some
of my Time, now given to Nothing--to praise Thee--But Death
This is the end, the redemption from Wilderness, way for the Won-
derer, House sought for All, black handkerchief washed clean by weeping
--page beyond Psalm--Last change of mine and Naomi--to God's perfect
Darkness--Death, stay thy phantoms!
II
Over and over--refrain--of the Hospitals--still haven't written your
history--leave it abstract--a few images
run thru the mind--like the saxophone chorus of houses and years--
remembrance of electrical shocks.
By long nites as a child in Paterson apartment, watching over your
nervousness--you were fat--your next move--
By that afternoon I stayed home from school to take care of you--
once and for all--when I vowed forever that once man disagreed with my
opinion of the cosmos, I was lost--
By my later burden--vow to illuminate mankind--this is release of
particulars--(mad as you)--(sanity a trick of agreement)--
But you stared out the window on the Broadway Church corner, and
spied a mystical assassin from Newark,
So phoned the Doctor--'OK go way for a rest'--so I put on my coat
and walked you downstreet--On the way a grammarschool boy screamed,
unaccountably--'Where you goin Lady to Death'? I shuddered--
and you covered your nose with motheaten fur collar, gas mask
against poison sneaked into downtown atmosphere, sprayed by Grandma--
And was the driver of the cheesebox Public Service bus a member of
the gang?You shuddered at his face, I could hardly get you on--to New
York, very Times Square, to grab another Greyhound--
poem by Allen Ginsberg
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A Fresh Endeavour
So now I've taken leave of life,
I thought you'd like to know, I still
Possess a mind in love, oh wife;
A soulful eye to catch a show of
Silent beauty – ever yours;
An ear to pick the metaphors
Of tonal dance in words you say,
Grasp a thought in verse you pray
Inside your head, bemused of mind,
Softly mournful, intertwined with
Understanding tears.
I'll drift a whisper o'er to you
To tell that I am quietly calm;
Keeping time till your adieu
To flesh, upon the carol of a
Psalm of consummation. Now!
A fresh endeavour – we're forever
One together, resting yonder,
Cross our open plane of blue.
Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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It's Death Again
It's Death again - He's always there -
Watching, waiting - e'er the stare!
Every time I look behind
Or reach to pull the window blind,
I catch a glimpse of grubby hood -
A little clue to where he stood;
The glint of light that caught the scythe.
Perhaps if I could pay a tithe…
But O! no use, he'll never go.
The adamant phantom; don't you know
He will but wait until it's time
For me to hear His fateful chime? -
The toll that claims my destiny,
To Hail: 'You're next, it has to be…'
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
The Reign of Death
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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I stared into death eyes
i woke up this morning and
i stared into Death eyes.
Death was amazing
he was wearing his black hoodie
and his skeleton bones were red.
Death held up a picture of you
and a picture of me.
i stared into Death eyes.
Death stuck the pictures together
and made them become one.
oh, how i stared into Death eyes.
Death did something to me
he stuck his hand out
i grabbed it and we took a walk.
it was a walk in the park
and then i seen you and there was me
we were married, you wonder how i know,
because i had the prettiest rock on my finger.
we were sitting on a bench
watching 3 little kids
playing on the playground
but then i look closely.
the little girl had eyes like mine
the complextion like mine and ears like you
the boys were twins and they looked exactly like you.
then i thought about it
those are our kids
then i stared into Death eyes.
i ask Death is this reality
Death stops me from breathing
and say suicide is not the answer.
i began to feel wozzy
as if Death was taking all my sins
and all my pain away and repeats
his self 3 times.
suicide is not the answer
suicide is not the answer
suicide is not the answer
and then i wake up
realizing that it was just a dream
a dream indeed.
now i know what it feels like
to stare into the eyes of Death.
now i know that my time wasnt
supposed to end back then,
my time ends with you.
-La'Veranique
*aka* dat girl nickey
poem by Nickey Mason
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Grandma, I Never Knew You
I never knew you
You are my grandmother.
I get mad at God
For not giving me a chance
To know you.
You died ten years
Before I was born.
It breaks my heart
Every time I think
That I will never get
The chance to know you.
I look at your picture that hangs
Almost everyday.
I wonder if I have your eyes.
I wonder if I have your laugh.
I wonder if I have your smile.
I wonder if I have your nose.
I wonder if I have anything of you.
I guess I will never know
I guess I will never get to see you.
Death is the most tragic thing in life
Death is hard on me now than I was younger.
Death is what I have inside
Thinking of everyone that I have lost.
Death is forever
Death is longer than an eternity
Death is permanent
Death is a scar that never goes away.
Death is what I feel everyday
Death is what has to be.
Death is what is happening everyday.
Death is what no one knows for sure.
Death is what everyone goes through.
Death is the reason why I am the way I am
Death is what I fear…
poem by Kimberly Santistevan
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Death Married Death To Death
Death looks at the flower, and it screams,
I am wet, moist and beautiful, look at me.
Why do I stand here alone, come and beat me,
I will wait, I will wait you must come over here to speak.
Death hovers, smiling, winking and always talking,
and by you walking, knowing that, this time is yours
there is no rest, that death must ignore you as well.
Any thing that you touch will also never die, neglected.
Death is love, love is death, why are you both, here.
Death is your pet pink pig, two flying pearls,
slapping against deaths face.
Death is a dry cracked nipple, asleep, holding on until
the flesh falls off and the milk is yellow and dry..
Death is a bullet fixed, never moving, and why does the
world move you through it always with impertinence to show..
Death is a mysterious voice, so disturbing and your quite,
coming aligns along the border, sounding alarms to no one,
while you walk across the street knowing you never look
at death as it comes over to you while you talk to some
one else never paying attention and embarrassed death
again leaves you to rest over some other you know.
Death is reaching in your casket and squeezing dry cotton,
and holding it's nose while he wipes your face from above.
Death is a woman, who is happy, thinking the world is
spinning into her fruit cake while death drinks coffee.
Death to all men who think they can save the woman
by marring death and eating her tuna fish sandwich.
Death fingered you, and you loved it, now you finger me,
leaving a bee exposed on your flower, that decays..saying,
Death's own flower it's always sweet and poignant and..
Death is always waiting for you to open and smell them.......
Death is more than the lilies and roses, it crawls out of one,
and comes out of the other and covers the worm with lilacs.
poem by Is It Poetry
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Till We Cease
i'll take the plunge
before you
let us meet death as one
together
walking alone together forever
take my hand
as you took my heart
death steals my pulse
as you stole my heart
past the first time, to the wedding band
death cant break our hands apart
i know it in the flecks of your eyes
even if we die
our hearts wont die
a single solitude together
we walk together
alone and consumed in death
forever
promise you wont ever
let my hand
my heart
go
the fire in you soul
lights our way
hoping its a blackhold
just think....
lost forever
together
with my love
catch the blood flow
in the heart
the beat of my heart
in sync with the beat of our steps
maybe well stop to rest
make me yours
make you mine
you inside me, inside this night
and at the end
of forever
hold my hand tight
dont let go
till we cease to breath this dank death
you had my life, and now the rest
with your eyes holding my eyes
our eyes a firelight
of passion
torches burning to the soul
my guide through a blackhole
my hand and yours melted so tight
making eachother ours in this night
firelight your eyes
the love that never dies
poem by Kathryn Garner
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Since I Have Felt The Sense Of Death
Since I have felt the sense of death,
Since I have borne its dread, its fear—
Oh, how my life has grown more dear
Since I have felt the sense of death!
Sorrows are good, and cares are small,
Since I have known the loss of all.
Since I have felt the sense of death,
And death forever at my side—
Oh, how the world has opened wide
Since I have felt the sense of death!
My hours are jewels that I spend,
For I have seen the hours end.
Since I have felt the sense of death,
Since I have looked on that black night—
My inmost brain is fierce with light
Since I have felt the sense of death.
O dark, that made my eyes to see!
O death, that gave my life to me!
poem by Helen Hoyt
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Father Death Blues
Hey Father Death, I'm flying home
Hey poor man, you're all alone
Hey old daddy, I know where I'm going
Father Death, Don't cry any more
Mama's there, underneath the floor
Brother Death, please mind the store
Old Aunty Death Don't hide your bones
Old Uncle Death I hear your groans
O Sister Death how sweet your moans
O Children Deaths go breathe your breaths
Sobbing breasts'll ease your Deaths
Pain is gone, tears take the rest
Genius Death your art is done
Lover Death your body's gone
Father Death I'm coming home
Guru Death your words are true
Teacher Death I do thank you
For inspiring me to sing this Blues
Buddha Death, I wake with you
Dharma Death, your mind is new
Sangha Death, we'll work it through
Suffering is what was born
Ignorance made me forlorn
Tearful truths I cannot scorn
Father Breath once more farewell
Birth you gave was no thing ill
My heart is still, as time will tell.
poem by Allen Ginsberg
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Few Minutes in the Dark
A few minutes in the dark.
What kind of dark?
No light shining?
Depression?
A reality check?
A few minutes in the dark can change you.
Change you how?
Change your outlook of life?
Change your personality?
Cause you to sin?
A few minutes in the dark is dangerous.
How is it dangerous?
Swallow you up in fear.
Never feel happiness.
No more friends.
No more family.
No more love.
No more life.
No more light.
A few minutes in the dark is scary.
You see the evil in the world with no light.
You lose your light for a few minutes and soul dies.
You lose a person, a loved one, every single second.
You lose sight of them and they're gone forever.
A few minutes in the dark and you cant see anything.
No more things that coused you joy or filled with love.
A few minutes in the dark.
It takes only 30 seconds for a child to be kidnapped.
Then after that, they fall to the darkness.
Soul burned out, and love gone.
Another life fallen to the darkness.
A few minutes in the dark.
When you left the light, there is no turning back.
A few minutes in the dark, and you lose sight.
Lose sight of the light.
See what happens in the dark?
A few minutes in the dark.
Causes death.
A breakup between lovers and one points a gun to their head.
A few minutes in the dark and you die.
The light will be sealed from you along memories.
Memories of light and love.
The two things the dark can never have.
Light and love.
A few minutes in the dark.
And you cant remember your friends.
Did you even have friends?
A few minutes in the dark can change your way of thinking.
Reminding you of death at every corner.
You wander forever not ever finding the light.
A few minutes in the dark will change you forever.
Happiness always has its sadness.
Sadness always has its happiness.
Where there is life, there is death waiting around the corner.
Where there is death, there is life some where waiting.
Death is darkness.
You cant find your light if you cant handle a few minutes in the dark.
And maybe people are still stuck in the dark and we dont notice.
Reach your hand out and show them the light.
Everyone around us may look happy but they dont see the light.
A few minutes in the dark is a very sad place to be in.
Your blinded and confused.
you dont feel love and people all around us will always be in the dark,
waiting for a friend to pull them out.
There will be better days
poem by Natalie Vail
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I Do Not Belong
Slave to the mind
It’s hard to find
The place that I belong....
Slave to the soul
I have played my role
To find where I belong
I do not belong here
I have done payed my fare
Why can’t I leave death?
I try until my last breath
You hold me here, hoping I’ll break
The happiness I hold is oh, so fake
I’m lost truly forgotten
In this world so begotten
I think now...why Death? Why hold me here?
And he answers.....Because of your fear
(Death) If I let you out you’ll get scared
(Death) Down here you have done fared
(Death) Very well I think isn’t depression joy?
I think not for a 14 year old boy...
I will leave Death, just you wait
(Death) I had you born on that fatal date!
(Death) Friday the Thirteenth I had you born
(Death) To have you walk this land as scorned
(Death) This is why I had you made
(Death) Depression is just a black parade
You had me made to live life of hate?
With this I will retaliate
I will fight against you, Death with all my might
To get past my petty fright
I’m afraid of life you know this Death
So you dragged me here into this depth
For the better of me? To help me be safe?
Ha! Your lies are beginning to chafe
(Death) But it’s true young child I only wished to help
Silence Death! Your voice is that of a young whelp!
I shall listen no longer I’m making my escape!
And leave to to this horrible fate
(Death) You think you can leave? Just like that?
(Death) I honor your courage with a tip of my hate
(Death) But you cannot escape here....It’s in your mind
In my mind you say? So devine!
I am in control of my mind
(Death) No, your not your just a fool
A fool who is stronger than you!
(Death) Stronger than Death? I think not
(Death) And now I will leave you here to rot
I’m over my fear and I will leave here
I’m leaving now Good Bye my dear
(Death) what’s this? Your truly leaving? But depression is your life!
I shall leave this world with a thrust of my knife
(Death) The world you say? Would you really?
I would do so absent-mindedly...
(Death) But we are here in your own mind
(Death) Would you kill yourself? I can’t really find
(Death) any doubt in your words...so ill leave just fine......
I have conquered you Death you said you were stronger!
....The lesson learned is I couldn’t be wronger
Death was warning me of the hates of this world
Makes everyone I know need to hurl
A lost love, a lost hope, a lost dream
Life isn’t as easy as it once seemed
That wasn’t Death I know this now
It was my own depression and it took its bow
It did a number on me I won’t recover
Not until a find another
Person just like me so we can talk
Maybe just take a little walk
And speak of our problems so we may be
Happy just like the world may seem
I have not found where I belong
But I am content with my little song
Made me feel better knowing the truths
Knowing my mind is aged well over my youth
With this my farewell I leave you here
Hoping that you know I hold all my friends dear
Written by Lucas Howes AKA Iruuka Blackheart
poem by Iruuka Blackheart
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The Death Penalty
Bring back the death penalty screamed a lady as the blood ran, dripping from the cold concrete as her sons blood fled from its body. Bring back, bring back the death penalty screamed a mother as her child dies slowly watching the pools of life fade away from his eyes.
Bring back, bring back the death penalty screamed a mother while she watched her child being killed by the hands of another man, bring back the death penalty.
Bring back the death penalty as she screamed holding her dying child while he laid his last words and breath upon her chest. Bring back the death penalty she screamed in mercy so that she will so that she will no longer have to hold any more of her dying sons and lay them in graves before she lays in her own.
Bring back the death penalty she screamed as her sons soul left his body and he became another victim to a violent society. Bring back the death penalty, bring back our sons.
poem by Melvyn Mohan
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Beldame of Death
A crunch: afoot a dead arachnid
Spanning once a serving plate –
Oh! that others be alive
With such as me for spider bait!
I slunk along the silent hall
Of ancient ore attired in grime –
Feculent beyond the nose;
No bearing here, nor feel for time.
I shuddered in appreciation –
The ambience would mortify
A feeble mind, aghast, opined
Of murky thought, and typify
The will of Belial err I brought
Upon myself to loathe and dread
Exquisite retribution: to linger
Oftentimes alive, then dead.
Compulsion saw me edging on
Toward a narrow door of oak.
Behind, I knew, a greater evil
Waiting in her fusty cloak.
A choice of nil upon the table;
Aught of leave, I had to face
Alone the shrew – her flaming aura
Angling me; my deep disgrace
From ugly deeds I dealt in life,
A heinous world I honed in glee…
'Now take a crooked path to death,
For I have come to torture thee! '
Out of eyes of orange flame,
A piercing glare, then here it came –
The cackling cry of chanting song:
'You thought you'd die alone in pain
The once – nay nay! you'll die with me,
And so a catch: you'll die again
Ad infinitum - ever be!
Your soul to curse, my heart we'll gore,
Your liver to draw and quarter;
A sadomasochistic pair,
We'll slither together in slaughter! '
I answered only with a scream, from
Sensing near her craving lust.
My crimes to answer; wrongs annul;
Renounce my soul and turn to dust...
On an evening cool and quiet,
Stretch an ear to listen tight –
Are you lucky of a moment –?
Hark! my clarion call of plight.
Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009
Notes on this poem can be found at:
http: //succumbedtothinking.webs.com/featuredpoems.htm
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Death and I
When death comes
I’ll need not love –
Consumed,
No wreath or dove
Could offer me salvation,
Not when I’m no more.
A weathered stone will bear my name –
Identity of once a being
Living out existence in
A world of risk, and never seeing
Sense of why we’re here.
My genes will die away thro’ child –
Hue of eyes and hair, the way of thought,
Will quickly dim with generation –
Bow to future dominance –
Memories of provenance
Resigned to curious few.
When death comes
I’ll need not grace
Below; no grieving face
Will call my resurrection,
Not when I’m at ground –
Death and I so bound.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2011
D eath Crawl
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Backwards Boy in the Backwards World
In the early morning, she is lying on the floor. He kneels and whispers, 'I love you.' And whishes he was sorry. He doesn't want to move, so he stays, dreaming about what they could have had if she would have only listened to him. He shakes his head, floating between dreaming and waking, knowing that they're coming to take him away from her forever.
He stares down at her. She is pale and covered with blood and bruises. She doesn't look like a real person. Everything seems strange, like a dream. Like a nightmare in which you lose everything. Light shines through the bloody windows, like an enchanted forest, the dappled shadow of the red leaves rippled on her silent body. He peers through the door, waiting, and thinking of years ago when he first met her. First loved her. First controled her. But years is only the day before yesterday. He is still trying to believe that they will never take her body. but the house is cracking open, because last night, he made her perfect. He made her his.
That's all there is to it. And for no reason, other than his love. He soon realizes that everything feels strange, like dreams that he stays in forever.
But also, he feels ordinary, as if the world has always been this way, and he knows that she wanted this, too, because she loved him. He puts his lips to her ear and says, 'This is how it is when someone loves you, ' and smiles. He makes her lips smile back and remembers all over again all the wishes she whispered and it hurst his heart. He brushes her long hair back. 'It's a shame it took this for you to be perfect. Today, you'll find out what perfection is, ' he whispers. He closes her eyes and holds her hand. 'So pretty when you sleep.' Finally, he opens her eyes and kisses her. She tastes like home. Her round blue eyes are glazed over with Death and Fear, but he likes them, and leaves them open so he can look at them.
When they come, he decides, he will hide behind his face. It's a good trick to have. You turn your face into a mask and then you are safe behind it, especially when they try to take what is yours.
poem by Zoe Guillory
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Understand That This Is a Dream
Real as a dream
What shall I do with this great opportunity to fly?
What is the interpretation of this planet, this moon?
if I can dream that I dream / and dream anything dreamable / can I dream
I am awake / and why do that?
When I dream in a dream that I wake / up what
happens when I try to move?
I dream that I move
and the effort moves and moves
till I move / and my arm hurts
Then I wake up / dismayed / I was dreaming / I was waking
when I was dreaming still / just now.
and try to remember next time in dreams
that I am in dreaming.
And dream anything I want when I'm awaken.
When I'm in awakeness what do I desire?
I desire to fulfill my emotional belly.
My whole body my heart in my fingertops thrill with some old fulfillments.
Pages of celestial rhymes burning fire-words
unconsumable but disappear.
Arcane parchments my own and the universe the answer.
Belly to Belly and knee to knee.
The hot spurt of my body to thee and thee
old boy / dreamy Earl / you Prince of Paterson / now king of me / lost
Haledon
first dream that made me take down my pants
urgently to show the cars / auto tracks / rolling down avenue hill.
That far back what do I remember / but the face of the leader of the gang
was blond / that loved me / one day on the steps of his house blocks away
all afternoon I told him about my magic Spell
I can do anything I want / palaces millions / chemistry sets / chicken
coops / white horses
stables and torture basements / I inspect my naked victims
chained upside down / my fingertips thrill approval on their thighs
white hairless cheeks I may kiss all I want
at my mercy. on the racks.
I pass with my strong attendants / I am myself naked
bending down with my buttocks out
for their smacks of reproval / o the heat of desire
liek shit in my asshole. The strange gang
across the street / thru the grocerystore / in the wood alley / out in the open
on the corner
Because I lied to the Dentist about that chickencoop roofing / slate stolen off
his garage
by me and the boy I loved who would punish me if he knew
what I loved him.
That now I have had that boy back in another blond form
Peter Orlovsky a Chinese teenager in Bangkok ten years twenty years
Jo Army on the campus / white blond loins / my mouth hath kisses /
full of his cock / my ass burning / full of his cock
all that I do desire. In dream and awake
this handsome body mine / answered
all I desired / intimate loves / open eyed / revealed at last / clothes on the
floor
Underwear the most revealing stripped off below the belly button in bed.
That's that / yes yes / the flat cocks the red pricks the gentle public hair /
alone with me
my magic spell. My power / what I desire alone / what after thirty years /
I got forever / after thirty years / satisfied enough with Peter / with all I
wanted /
with many men I knew one generation / our sperm passing
into our mouths and bellies / beautiful when I love / given.
Now the dream oldens / I olden / my hair a year long / my thirtyeight
birthday approaching.
I dream I
am bald / am disappearing / the campus unrecognizable / Haledon Avenue
will be covered with neon / motels / Supermarkets / iron
the porches and woods changed when i go back / to see Earl again
He'll be bald / fleshy father / I could pursie him further in the garage
If there's still a garage on the hill / on the planet / when I get back.
From Asia.
If I could even remember his name or his face / or find him /
When I was ten / perhaps he exists in some form.
With a belly and a belt and an auto
Whatever his last name / I never knew / in the phonebook / the Akashic
records.
I'll write my Inspiration for all Mankind to remember,
My Idea, the secret cave / in the clothes closet / that house probably down /
Nothing to go back to / everything's gone / only my idea
that's disappearing / even in dreams / gray dust piles / instant annihilation
of World War II and all its stainless steel shining-mouthed cannons
much less me and my grammar school kisses / I never kissed in time /
and go on kissing in dream and out on the street / as if it were for ever.
No forever left! Even my oldest forever gone, in Bangkok, in Benares,
swept up with words and bodies / all into the brown Ganges /
passing the burning grounds and / into the police state.
My mind, my mind / you had six feet of Earth to hoe /
Why didn't you remember and plant the seed of Law and gather the sprouts
of What?
the golden blossoms of what idea? If I dream that I dream / what dream
should I dream next? Motorcycle rickshaws / parting lamp shine / little
taxis / horses hoofs
on this Saigon midnight street. Angkor Wat ahead and the ruined city's old
Hindu faces
and there was a dream about Eternity. What should I dream when I wake?
What's left to dream, more Chinese meat? More magic Spells? More youths
to love before I change & disappear?
More dream words? For now that I know that I am dreaming /
What next for you Allen? Run down to the Presidents Palace full of Morphine /
The cocks crowing / in the street / Dawn trucks / What is the question?
Do I need sleep, now that there's light in the window?
I'll go to sleep. Signing off until / the next idea / the moving van arrives
empty
at the Doctor's house full of Chinese furniture.
poem by Allen Ginsberg
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Chorus of the Dead
And all returns to Thee, alone eternal,
And all Thee returning.
Oh Death, in Thy vast shadow,
Simple and bare we languish,
Not happy, but from the anguish
Of life at last set free. The night profoundly
Falls on the shaken spirit,
And dark in dark confuses;
The withered soul sourage and hope refuses;
Spent and uncaring,
Free now from sorrow and from fear for ever,
We lie here undespairing
Through void eternity.
We lived... And as a phantom from a dream of terror
Wanders into the day,
And draws across the speechless souls of children
A memory and a fear,
We, as we linger here,
Are haunted still by life: but fears of children
Haunt us not now. What were we?
What was that bitter point in time
That bore the name of life?
Mysterious, stupendous,
Lost in our thought that hidden country lies:
As in our day of life there lay
The secret land of death. And as from dying
Our living souls drew back, so now they draw
Back from the flame of life,
Simple and bare to languish,
Not happy, but not in anguish;
For happiness we know
Fate upon life or death will not bestow.
poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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I Met Death
I was waiting, watching one day
When Death came along, looking
As if there was something he wanted to say
His hair was as black as the sky at night
And in the wind it blew like smoke
He had come a long way in his worn black cloak
So I invited him in and I did say
If you’d like to you can stay
But Death said:
“I’m only passing through
For the clock’s hands they say
They are ticking the seconds of my life away”
And I answered,
Thinking I’d misunderstood
As Death’s dark black eye gleamed under his dark black hood
“If your Death, how can you die? ”
You see, Death didn’t seem the kind to lie.
And Death wasn’t phased at all,
“No longer Death I may become,
Or so says He if I don’t complete
The most horrible, horrible, feat.
“The most horrible feat? ”
I had to say
Could it be so horrible,
That Death couldn’t say?
“Death, ” said Death, “is the horrible feat.”
And then he faded away, like smoke into the blue, blue sky
But I think, before he left, I might have seen him cry.
I had never in my life, seen Death again
Until the night I stood outside in the rain
When he said, “I’m sorry miss, but this is good bye.”
And I found out what it’s like to die.
So we went, and parted, to each our own way,
But one more time I want to heard Death say, “I’m sorry miss, -“
Marking the end of the day
poem by Jinny Tikanus
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Death, Inevitable Death
Death, inevitable Death.
So now You come to show Your world,
Hence the blackened cloak – unfurled.
And peering down upon my form
– Bereft of pity – Your eyes of storm.
Death, inexorable Death.
‘When? ’ The only question out of Thee.
My dream retorts 'But ne’er for me! ’
But now awake, I bid you so –
My giving tears cry ‘Where to go? ’
Death, adamant Death.
You cast Your spell and guide me 'way,
For life and I have had our day.
And what of me? I prey You, tell!
Be glorious in Heaven or gnarled in Hell?
Death, ineluctable Death.
Oh wiry ghoul, I'm here to follow –
I leave my body grey and shallow.
‘Come! ’ You bid in thund’ring tones,
‘Beg farewell to shattered bones.’
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
Death
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Death
poem by Mark R Slaughter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Death Married Death In Death
Death looks at a flower, screaming I am beautiful
look here I am, come eat me, alone.
Death hovers, smiling, never waiting, walking always
by, knowing that,
any thing that touches it will also soon, never die.
Death is love, love is death, why are you both, death
is your pet pink pig, and two flying pearls.
Death is a dry cracked nipple, sleeping, holding on
to the flesh untill it falls off.
Death is a bullet fixed, never moving, why does the
world move you through it.
Death is a voice always quite, sounding alarms to
walk across the street knowing you look while you
come running.
Death is a woman, who is crazy, thinking the world is
spinning into her coffee.
Death to all men who think they can save the woman
by marring death and eating her sandwich.
Death fingered you, you loved it, now you finger me,
leaving my bee exposed on the flower, you buzzed.
Death's own flower is always sweet and poignant on me..
It is always open for you to smell..............
and it's red alarms, you ignored...
still here now it comes, alone....to see you as one....
poem by Is It Poetry
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Death 'married' Death To Death
Death looks at a flower and you screaming,
I am beautiful, look, look..
look here I am, come and eat me, alive.
Death hovers, smiling, never waiting, walking always
walking by, walking in side, you knowing that,
any thing that touches, it will soon also, come to *sigh*.
Death is love, love is death, what are you both, death
is your pet pink pig and deaths two flying bagged pearls.
Slapping you for ever and ever about your red face.
Death is a dry cracked nipple, sleeping, holding on
to the flesh untill it falls off, still dripping.
Death is a bullet fixed, never moving, why does the
world move you through it.
Death is a voice always quite, sounding alarms to
walk across the street knowing you look both ways,
while you come running very quickly out across,
just to stop in the middle and wait.
Death is a woman, who is crazy, thinking the world is
spinning into her coffee.
Death to all men who think they can save each woman
by marring death and eating her tuna fish sandwich.
Death fingered you, you loved it, now you finger me,
leaving my bee exposed on the flower, you buzzed it.
Death's own flower is always sweet and poignant on you..
It is always open for death to smell..............
and it's red alarms, you ignored...
still here it comes, never alone....to see you as you really are....
poem by Is It Poetry
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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