PoetryMagazine.com Since 1996 Volume XXI
Jack Foley
USA
THEY DIE, the ones
around you
this is morbid no one
tells you
I want you to emphasize when they
wish “long life”
life that not
everyone has it
how nice it is that people
don’t die together
to have friends but piecemeal
to have lovers some today
how good the taste some yesterday
of ice cream & some tomorrow
hamburgers room for sorrow
of Vietnamese room for cessation
pho of anger
stop with the whining room in all of this
grow up for love
you have plenty to live for (sometimes)
you have money death
friends the great
projects contradictory
why complain force
be in
positive the
love life room
[Published in the book by the author, Grief
…
SHE IS IN MY LIFE innocence
innocence matched with
matched with intelligence
intelligence sweetness
sweetness matched with
matched with guile
guile (& wit)
(& wit) a deep
a deep awareness of
awareness of suffering
suffering (“I have been in pain most of my life”)
(“in pain most
of my life”) desire
desire matched with
matched with compassion
compassion fear
fear of
of abandonment
abandonment fear
fear of
of sleep
sleep wish
wish for structure
for structure &
& cleanliness
cleanliness shy
shy but with extraordinary
but with
extraordinary capacity for listening
capacity for
listening wish
wish for the holiness
for the
holiness of Buddhahood
of Buddhahood
• incredibly
incredibly passionate
passionate eyes
eyes
YAHRZEIT (June 27, 2017) for Adelle It is What the Jews call Yahrzeit, A year since your death. The word stings. If you retain any consciousness of the world You know That I have found a new love. She has been A wonder and a comfort In my grief for you. I think you would have liked her (And mothered her!). Going through your dresser drawer As we attempt to find room for her things, She found A fancy, almost comically sexy garter. I had forgotten it But recognized it immediately. You wore it only once, On the night of December 21, 1961, Our wedding night; You kept it, as you kept many other things, for all these years. How we formed each other. How we treasured each other’s hearts. If the stories are true, You may be in bliss While I find my way through this quivering wall of sorrow and tears. And love. My first love, my dear first love, It has been a year (Has it been a year?), Yahrzeit. Your ashes Remain in the vanishing morning light. [Published in the book by the author, Grief Songs] FOR JAMES JOYCE’S BIRTHDAY (FEB 2) Is it yer birthday is it, says I. Yes, it is, says me. Well if it’s yr birthday what do ye do with the thingamajig? says I. You mean the fact that I’ve been dead for a good many years now? says me. I do indead, says I. Well, it’s true that I am among the not so recently decessed, yssss, that’s true. But I don’t decay, you know, says me. What do you mean you don’t decay? says I. I stopped being a man but I became something else, says me. And what is that, pray? says I. It’s a book, says me. All lion hearts are Catlick in the tomb. And we Rise awake when you shake a page. When you shake a page, we rage. These pages are the leaves that grow out of Yggdrasil, the dendritic centaurs branching out and out. And when we fall we fly. Do we now? says I. Yes, says me, we fly UP when we fall. Into the arms of Seamus O’Toole the great Cocksman, who cockadoodle doos in the year of the Roister. Hear his cry. And every cry is a birth of a baby and every baby is a dooer and a door and every tear is a cry and every cry tears the heart till it opens. And when it opens it’s a birth and a bath of heartsblood. O the Catlicks. We know it down to our paws. And our maws too, if it comes to that. Well, says I, if you open your ma it’s surely a birth and the birth must be a day and the day is today in the vast Fibruary in the great ocean of time on the second day in the year of the Orange fool in the Great White House (where is the Green where is the Green?). I’m with you there since how could we be separate you and I? When I open the book I fall and it’s Fall but it’s Winter and Spring too with snow falling like leaves like words like wonners that come with wings. And the dead spring up and sings: Ah, Blarney Castle, ah, drunkenness, ah, sweet irrevocables and vocables, and we wing it as the day moves on and the night (ah, night) falls too. [Published in the book by the author, Grief Songs
Copyright,
2017, Jack Foley
All Rights Reserved. |
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