How To Greet Death (Guest Post – Gabriel Gadfly)

How To Greet Death

Greet death
with your hands in your pockets,
slouched back, cool,
collected, and confident.
Wear a hint of a grin
and a dash of cologne.
Say What took you so long?
Say You’re behind the times, man.
Say Dead is the new black.
Coffin is the new condo.
Pallor is the new tan.
La vida muerta.

Greet death
with a fistful of black-eyed susans,
butterflies in your stomach,
and two tickets to tomorrow’s sunrise.
Wear your father’s cufflinks
and your mother’s wedding ring.
Say I brought these for you, babe.
Say Kiss me, kiss me.
Say But wait until the sun comes up.
Just until daybreak.
I want to show you something.
Hasta la muerte, te amo.

Greet death
with a knife at your own neck,
chin up, throat bared,
cardiac in overdrive.
Wear nothing.
Wear nothing.
Say Bring it on motherfucker!
Say Only on my terms.
Say nothing
and open your throat.
and bleed to completion.
El final, el final, el final.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Oct 29, 2009

 

A single heart

He sounds like me

Intelligent and compassionate

The stranger could be mine

Without reason,

that notion transports me

I have crossed over

on the bridge of my heartstrings

I can never return

These affections fit like skin

 

Can you hear me?

My intention is veiled

I don’t mean my words

If you are mine,

you will see through this thick glass

I will not bare myself

My eyes could not look

at spurned nakedness

 

I hold onto the chord

Dancing alone

Onlookers think it’s a loser’s swing

That I will hit the ground hard

I do not fall

So I believe

that you hold the other end

 

I don’t know how long I wait

I could live a year on your one word

Your kind smile

carries me through seasons

My arms ache

longing to be touched

I run out of couched messages

There is now only one step

I let go

 

BT

 

TJ Dema

Enjoy this gem from Botswana

 

Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

Lather the skin
Launder the shirt
Brush the shoes
Brush the shoes
Launder the shirt
Lather the skin

Existence by rotation
Living in circles
Rewind as a move forward
Doing it like clockwork
Life, a broken record
I could cry of boredom
Out loud like a zombie
Dizzy from going around

Read mail
Make the call
Write the cheque
Write the cheque
Make the call
Read mail

Return for new memories
Repetition to make perfect
Redoing for upkeep
Dailyness is survival
Reworking for another chance
Reappear and make new friends
Restart for a new opportunity
Routine for growth

Write your story
Read your lines
Draw your vision
Draw your vision
Read your lines
Write your story

Circles for a critical tangent
A hit from a thousand gigs
The baby walks after many meals
A star is born with several moons
The bestseller is miles of lines
27 years made Mandela
Many encounters form a legacy
Yarns criss and cross to make cloth
Facebook is one friend and then another
Peace is born of many handshakes

Each baby has her own thumbprint
Each dawn its sky
A new country its own world
Every song its melody
Each day its promise
Today’s poem has a new message
A raindrop is like no other
The sun sets for today’s tears
Receive from yesterday to give to tomorrow

Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

BT

 

Community Talk

Half a glance and half a smile
A need and a fear on a middle ground
Strangers trying to talk
A full lone sentence is madness
Total silence is denial
that will grow into an explosion

Finally a voice is raised
Several smiles have made it safe
Passengers become family
The cash office is made into a home
Eyes can meet
No one could do this alone

The fence is measured with lines spoken
Sometimes by a mental record of time
Group sense that ends the talk
Boundaries are needed for banter
Before familiarity breeds contempt
Only so much can be shared in a bus
She will not pay your fare
You must alight at your own stop

BT

 

Curse the Devil

A note of rejection
drops into my heart with a thud
I am a vessel of sorrows
I can hear the sound of goodbye
from background to foreground
I dance heavily to the dirge
I must sing my song or die
I raise my head and cry out
‘Tomorrow, I will raise the tempo!’

Fear took me by the hand
Racing me into the dark
Onto the long shadows of dwarfs
Kicking and screaming
Writhing and rolling
Fighting and stabbing
at the ghosts of the night
All my pores are now bleeding
I lie drained out on the dust
I must touch the light or die
Illuminate me now

My clothes fall off as rags
My feet melt into the ground
My arms hang heavy like logs
Tears flow like rivers of blood
Friends stare at the spectacle
Family hold their hands to their mouths
Thunder rolls and growls
Its hell out here
I must go inside me or die
My destiny is secure
I take the seat of life

BT