Elegy

This autumn finds you

removed from anyone who knew.

Only the maple is at your mercy;

its leaves crunch around the stone

with enough respect.  

I no longer panic about the cracks.

The uncomfortable damp.

Something from the basement

is buried with secrets.

The dreams have stopped.

Your eyes stay in their sockets;

two dark-stained walnuts,

bitter and tenacious.

All the dead are pious.

It suits you.

tk/October 2014



Perfectly delivered by R.A.D. Stainforth...

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Nefertiti

Mummy dearest,

corkscrewed queen,

embedded six feet down.

Headpiece removed,

your skull looks normal;

too much like mine.

The gods are relieved your reign is complete.

Plague, Old Testament kind;

blood, locusts, first born.

Did they bury you fancy,

with rings on; the sapphire

I gave you for your birthday.

Rest.  There will be no dig; no museum,

no squandering of your remains,
no flowers.

tk/July 2014

Beautifully read by R.A.D. Stainforth ...

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Et Exspecto

Resurrection Reunion 2, 1945, by Sir Stanley Spencer

The dead await no resurrection.

They shed their wide Germanic wings;

shrouds cling moist, translucent,

like thin white condoms.

The scent settles in recollection

of beaches, bedclothes, and black dogs.

Forgotten haar pauses for the baton,

surplice and cassock,

ruff around abandoned larynx,

secrets deep between bare teeth.

They stand with crocuses among the stones;

erect and proud, heads fully extended,

ceremoniously silent.

The dead await no resurrection.

tk/November 2013


R.A.D. Stainforth's best read to date...tell me if you agree...

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Come Upon Me

Come upon me by chance ―

almost touch me.

Inhale my smile.

Save my scarf in a jam jar.

Write me a sonnet ―

read it in dove sounds.

Never ask me to sing it ―

I may crack on the high notes.

Promise to keep my grave ―

scrub the stone with a little brush.

Pick me some leaves.

Bring me pastrami on rye.

Trace the shape of my hand.

Memorize each fingertip.

Take care with the ring finger ―

it is the weakest.

tk/August 2013

Thank you to R.A.D. Stainforth for preserving my words with voice. (He's not really asleep here...)

Drawing Hands, 1948 by M. C. Escher

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Meanwhile

Meanwhile, I know

the wistful in my bones,

the coming pixelated blue―

write mindless, solid,

insouciant, as if it were the ache

of a passing storm.

I shake my umbrella―

thank, kiss, and love unrequited,

like a dog wet from rain.

Strangely compelled to tidy affairs―

ignore the exaggerated

details of hell.

tk/June 2013

Thanks to the talented R.A.D. Stainforth for reading this poem. 

image by Musin Yohan

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Flight

Pilot me to the edge,

to the door between either and or.

Wear tie and handkerchief,

the trilby that looks sexier on you―

with midnight in your pocket,

your shadow fixed between the arrows.

Look to the middle distance when the tide is out―

at last you see migration on the horizon.

Give me mellow, for keeps.

Show me the other side of clouds―

pull goggles over my eyes,

kisses from my quiver.

Let me be free to let go―

die that little death.

tk/June 2013

Thanks to  R.A.D. Stainforth for bringing this poem to life. 

The Promenade, 1918, Marc Chagall 

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For Sylvia on her birthday...

There is no life higher than the grasstops
Or the hearts of sheep, and the wind
Pours by like destiny, bending
Everything in one direction.
I can feel it trying
To funnel my heat away.
If I pay the roots of the heather
Too close attention, they will invite me
To whiten my bones among them.

Sylvia Plath, from her poem Wuthering Heights

image:  Study in Gray, Oak Grove Cemetery and Arboretum, Delaware, Ohio, October 2011