Category: Death & Afterlife
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Playing possum
at a roadside grille two turkey buzzards dine on possum meat quibble over who gets the last eyeball hors d’oeuvre sometimes when you stare into headlights fall down to play dead the oncoming car refuses to play you end up an entree at a roadside grille where two old buzzards quarrel like family at a…
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Among gravestones
Among gravestones of an old church With a place for children to play I walk along rows of stories Etched in stone Tidal marsh of emotion filled and emptied And filled again Life swirls above and below It is peaceful there 5-16-23
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Poem for a dead poet
Sometimes, I think of you and your mother crying at your funeral. She said the police told her you dozed off and never woke up. This gave her solace, because it would have pained her to know You laid awake all night crying for her to come save you. Last night, I woke up in…
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Spongebobia
last night I saw Dick Van Dyke smiling in a crowd he leaped high into the air did a prat fall and lay dead as everyone applauded his last performance I stood nearby while Mary Tyler Moore and Mary Poppins tried to get him to resurrect this morning I lay in bed watching the sky…
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Plum blossom slippers
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.(Thich Nhat Hanh) written for a poetry workshop: Rejoice in the morning of your survival Above your head a crow shakes last night’s rain from leaves Haploid to diploid fertility dance In the dewy dawn moss comes green The weight of your burden is carried…
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Raleigh 10:30am
Above our daughter’s neighbor’s house Dead limbs stand among green Death In the midst of life Draws me in, suspends me in air 8-5-23
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requiem for a K-Mart shopper
At a Blue Light Special, they met. Only one sub sandwich left. He offered to share. She accepted. Decades later, He sat beside her hospice bed Praying to share her pain. His doctor advised him to avoid Cheap lunch meat and white bread; He does not care anymore. At the Walmart Subway counter He pays…
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haiku reflection on friends gone too soon
late summer morning wind tossed leaves drift on the pond couldn’t wait for Autumn 9-9-23
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Chocolate croissants
Sharing chocolate croissants with a friend, you count seconds between lightning and thunder, talk about safety in the coming storm. Jets from the airbase fly practice runs overhead, shake trees, grow quivering concentric circles in your cup of tea. Your friend tells you he heard in Gaza fighter jets fly faster than sound and if…
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The beauty of dying
floating leaves interrupt an illusion of heaven drowning in water’s reflection Autumn falling up reclines in blue Summer stripped of green fragile beauty revealed before it slips below the surface and is gone 11-9-23
My husband's poetry 