Saturday, February 2, 2008

Talking to Death & Old World Changing (Poetry)

Talking to Death
((Confessional) (#2211/2-2-2008))


When I die
I really don’t give a hoot
if you bury me in the local cemetery
or along some abandon road,
or lock me up tight in a wooden urn,
or throw my ashes over, and down into
the Rimac or Mississippi rivers.
I don’t even care for a funeral!
First, I got no family to speak of:
a brother, one son, a wife—
the wife cares the most,
the others could care, less.
My grandchildren,
they are like ghosts,
I had little chance to visit with them,
led by their parents, of no respect…
—If they have a wake, good,
let my poet friends, and fans
see me: I wrote for them, under
the Algarrobo tree,
in a war, sitting by my window
on the attic floor, at eleven,
in the still of the night
throughout my life,
throughout the world as I traveled.
They, I could talk to all night,
they and my little cute wife.
Yes, make a wake for me, for
they were my faithful friends,
let them come, let them come
and bear witness, of my end,
I am but a poet, yet for some reason
I pleased them.


Old World Changing

While poets chant to Allah, along the Tigris, and near the Persian Gulf,
satellites listen to the angry phone calls from Tehran, Saudi Arabia
Russia, China, Aruba…the phone wires are hot, they even broke the
the other day, the cable that reaches from Egypt, to Italy; I wonder what
they had to say. China had a bad storm this winter, it will cost them
lots of yen, billions and billions. All the people are becoming
hypnotized with the long tales of war and blood. Radios, aircraft,
munitions, newspapers proclaiming earth is reeking, sinking, dying,
changing, a new epoch has begun. Hence, the Earth is overwhelmed,
its muscular bones, broad shoulders, are cracking, leaning, almost
crippled. The Old World is changing. I can even hear its teeth
grinding, along the pacific coast, in the Indian Ocean, in the Weddell Sea—
owe to those who live this century through. Ah, run to the mountains, and
caves, for man and earth will dig your graves, dig your graves…!

#2009 2-2-2008

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