Tag: death
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World on the March
From the vantage of a top window I watch khaki ants vanish Factions action bound make passage Leaving in jolly batches, in patchwork and motley Returning in patch and blood-blotted bandage Hand in hand the gas damaged living in the land of Nod Distant action A sense of traction, of freefall Inked names suffer no…
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Notification of Death 1915
She hears gravel level Level step of a step sergeant Loud chest his jangling medals of charge His thumb web black from repeated discharge within a yard of target He hands over a cream card, says Mrs Hargreaves my heart grieves When one leaks, indeed all England bleeds I know that he died on his…
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Night Drive Neon Stained Skies
Key to things beyond my ken Obelisk tip is called Ben Ben It represents primordial land Song stage on which Atum stands. Drive what feels like ages Trees instead of walls still cages My life a thousand variations on beiges Need captain’s holiday on a Bejor lakeshore, no room on Risa Always expecting a downpour,…
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Orpheuselessness
Boatman haunts the opening Daunting Orphic mysterion Inducing supernatural slumber Inducted acolytes slip under Lethe waters, that river thunders Through Hell’s halls. Not the only one that runs there Blundering alongside its forgetful brother A water of memory, mind’s spring water Time’s sweet mother a patchwork smothering device The dead line its sides, life yet…
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Second House
When you speak What you don’t know Falls like fall snow Beneath your snout You seek and sneak and eke out You are a ghost inside my house A false knowing A pallbearer when it’s snowing Lifting the palled coffin with no emotions showing His pale face, his cough-soured mouth White as a winter lotus,…
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Green Hell
Vietnaming names they blacked out of docs, alphabet black ops Men sweat so much they’re made of salt Heat trapped in by a verdant vault Riddled fronds mark where they repelled last night’s assault It’s so hot the gunmetal boils, hotter than I ever recall Lightless flame and flameless light, the blameless dead in the…
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Three Graves
Dig a grave both deep and wide Spade-cleave the wintered bog, Inter his swaddled form inside Breathe again as fog. Dig another grave this time Less wide but equal deep; Melt Her quick with garnish of lyme, Rent the spent sun seeps. Dig one last grave, you man By the measures of your eye; A…
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Instructions For A Wake
Venerate my demise Venerate me at my demise Whether I was a miser hard on dimes A master charmer fixed on dames A mixer and hod carrier fixing Dame Street Bury me like I was a king Abounding fires let girdle the spot Vile earth in paces measured Payments eclipse my sightless eyes boatman’s tithe…
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Divine Dawn Vimy Ridge
Marching with the rank and file Third trench Christmas, it’s all lasting a while. Curios whittled on frontlines and letters from home on a table in a pile Songs with similar airs performed in curious varied style Sitting on hard benches, itchy bunioned with asses piled Slapped knees and all at ease, dancing between the…
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Weeping at the Cenotaph, bitter as the cud
Looking out from the highest window Gaunt regiment of flayed trees girdling her lonely tower Purging stones, sins that cure, lonely dismal sinecure Sign it all away Walls her grandfather raised marked the barony Jericho’s opposite, high walls and many years since sounding trumpets Amidst the crowd yet apart from the whole, she haunts the…