Next Second, You Were Gone - Randall Stephens

I heard about an old broken phone box
Where people would go to have imaginary conversations
At first, I found it foolish
And then I joined the queue.

When my turn came, I dialled your old number.
There was no ringtone, but I told you everything
and I waited in silence
as if you might respond. 

I thought I heard you breathe. 
Then I remembered they told me my life should go on. 
One second, you were here.

Lines for Winter - Mark Strand

                                                                            for Ros Krauss

Tell yourself

as it gets cold and gray falls from the air

that you will go on

walking, hearing

the same tune no matter where

you find yourself—

inside the dome of dark

or under the cracking white

of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.

Tonight as it gets cold

tell yourself

what you know which is nothing

but the tune your bones play

as you keep going. And you will be able

for once to lie down under the small fire

of winter stars.

And if it happens that you cannot

go on or turn back

and you find yourself

where you will be at the end,

tell yourself

in that final flowing of cold through your limbs

that you love what you are.

Not Waving but Drowning - Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he’s dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.

Depression, Too, Is a Kind of Fire - Taylor Mali

I’m an idiot because once

before we were married she asked me whether I knew

that we would not be having children

if we did get married, and I said yes.

And because she knew I was lying,

she asked if I was really okay with that.

And because I’m an idiot I said yes again.

And once during a fight, not married

more than two years, she said she felt like my first wife,

and I, like an idiot, assured her that she was.

She worked out at the gym five times a week

and smoked as many packs of ultra lights,

and I’m an idiot because when I asked her why,

She said, Because I hate myself and I want to die.

And I laughed and said something I don’t recall,

something completely and utterly insufficient.

From the roof of our apartment,

I saw 40 or 50 people jump from the towers

on a Tuesday morning—we used to be able to see them to the south,

just as, to the north, we can still see

(and by “we” I guess I mean now just me)

the Empire State Building,

which still steeps me in gratitude

because I’m an idiot—

out of the smoke with arms flailing.

And I swear I saw a perfect swan.

And I was going to write a poem

about how fire is the only thing

that can make a person jump out a window.

And maybe I’m an idiot for thinking I could have saved her—

call me her knight in shattered armor—

could have loved her more,

or told the truth about children.

But depression, too, is a kind of fire.

And I know nothing of either.

twilight musings - Charles Bukowski

the drifting of the mind.

the slow loss, the leaking away.

one’s demise is not very interesting.

from my bed I watch 3 birds through the east window:

one coal black, one dark brown, the

other yellow.

as night falls I watch the red lights on the bridge blink on and off.

I am stretched out in bed with the covers up to my chin.

I have no idea who won at the racetrack today.

I must go back into the hospital tomorrow.

why me?

why not?

Straw House, Straw Dog - Richard Siken

               1

I watched TV.         I had a Coke at the bar.       I had four dreams in a row

where you were burned, about to burn, or still on fire.

               I watched TV.          I had a Coke at the bar. I had four Cokes,

four dreams in a row.

Here you are in the straw house, feeding the straw dog. Here you are

               in the wrong house, feeding the wrong dog. I had a Coke with ice.

I had four dreams on TV.          You have a cold cold smile.

               You were burned, you were about to burn, you’re still on fire.

Here you are in the straw house, feeding ice to the dog, and you wanted

               an adventure, so I said          Have an adventure.

The straw about to burn, the straw on fire. Here you are on the TV,

               saying Watch me, just watch me.

               2

Four dreams in a row, four dreams in a row, four dreams in a row,

               fall down right there. I wanted to fall down right there but I knew

you wouldn’t catch me because you’re dead.          I swallowed crushed ice

pretending it was glass and you’re dead. Ashes to ashes.

You wanted to be cremated so we cremated you and you wanted an adventure

               so I ran          and I knew you wouldn’t catch me.

You are a fever I am learning to live with, and everything is happening

               at the wrong end of a very long tunnel.

               3

I woke up in the morning and I didn’t want anything, didn’t do anything,

               couldn’t do it anyway,

just lay there listening to the blood rush through me and it never made

               any sense, anything.

And I can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t sit still or fix things and I wake up and I

wake up and you’re still dead, you’re under the table, you’re still feeding

               the damn dog, you’re cutting the room in half.

Whatever.           Feed him whatever.           Burn the straw house down.

               4

I don’t really blame you for being dead but you can’t have your sweater back.

               So, I said, now that we have our dead, what are we going to do with them?

There’s a black dog and there’s a white dog, depends on which you feed,

               depends on which damn dog you live with.

               5

Here we are

               in the wrong tunnel, burn O burn, but it’s cold, I have clothes

all over my body, and it’s raining, it wasn’t supposed to. And there’s snow

               on the TV, a landscape full of snow, falling from the fire-colored sky.

But thanks, thanks for calling it          the blue sky

               You can sleep now, you said. You can sleep now. You said that.

I had a dream where you said that. Thanks for saying that.

               You weren’t supposed to.

Norris Cancer Institute - Sholeh Wolpé

He, dying.

Air dancing, sun shining

somewhere out there.

And I walking the corridors, looking

for an exit.

For the Dead - Adrienne Rich

I dreamed I called you on the telephone

to say: Be kinder to yourself

but you were sick and would not answer

The waste of my love goes on this way

trying to save you from yourself

I have always wondered about the leftover

energy, water rushing down a hill

long after the rains have stopped

or the fire you want to go to bed from

but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down

the red coals more extreme, more curious

in their flashing and dying

than you wish they were

sitting there long after midnight

What I Learned from My Mother - Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look in their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

Afraid - Gösta Ågren

He was afraid of freedom,

for he wanted to be free to

choose it. He was afraid

of happiness, for he was afraid

of the time when the party is

over, also that part of the party

that consists of the time when

it is over. He was afraid of

life, for it lacked

secrecy, and therefore

mercy, and the reward  

for living, death,

was not enough, for

he was not afraid 

of it.

She Dotes - Edward Thomas

She dotes on what the wild birds say

Or hint or mock at, night and day, --

Thrush, blackbird, all that sing in May,

     And songless plover,

Hawk, heron, owl, and woodpecker.

They never say a word to her

     About her lover.

She laughs at them for childishness,

She cries at them for carelessness

Who see her going loverless

     Yet sing and chatter

Just as when he was not a ghost,

Nor ever ask her what she has lost

     Or what is the matter.

Yet she has fancied blackbirds hide

A secret, and that thrushes chide

Because she thinks death can divide

     Her from her lover:

And she has slept, trying to translate

The word the cuckoo cries to his mate

     Over and over.

When a Friend (for Ellis Settle, 1924-93) - Stephen Dobyns

When a friend dies, part

of oneself splits off

and spins into the outer dark.

No use calling it back.

No use saying I miss you.

Part of one's body has been riven.

One recollects gestures,

mostly trivial. The way

he pinched a cigarette,

the way he crouched on a chair.

Now he is less than a living flea.

Where has he gone, this person

whom I loved? He is vapor now;

he is nothing. I remember

talking to him about the world.

What a rich place it became

within our vocabulary. I did not

love it half so much until

he spoke of it, until it was sifted

through the adjectives of our discussion.

And now my friend is dead.

His warm hand has been reversed.

His movements across a room

have been erased. How I wish

he was someplace specific. He

is nowhere. He is absence.

When he spoke of the things

he loved - books, music, pictures,

the articulation of idea -

his body shook as if a wire

within him suddenly surged.

In passion, he filled the room.

Where has he gone, this friend

whom I loved? The way he shaved,

the way he cut his hair, even

the way he squinted when he talked,

when he embraced idea, held it -

all vanished. He has been reduced

to memory. The books he loved,

I see them on my shelves. The words

he spoke still group around me. But

this is chaff. This is the container

now that heart has been scraped out.

He is defunct now. His body is less

than cinders; less than a sentence

after being whispered. He is the zero

from which a man has vanished. He

was the smartest, most vibrant,

like a match suddenly struck, flaring;

now he is sweepings in a roadway.

Where is he gone? He is nowhere.

My friends, I knew a wonderful man,

these words approximate him,

as chips of stone approximate

a tower, as wind approximates a song.

Going Without Saying (i.m. Joe Flynn) - Bernard O'Donoghue

It is a great pity we don't know

When the dead are going to die

So that, over a last companionable

Drink, we could tell them

How much we liked them.

Happy the man who, dying, can

Place his hand on his heart and say:

‘At least I didn't neglect to tell

The thrush how beautifully she sings.’

For a Senior Killed on Prom Night - Gail White

It's useless to pretend you would have been

a genius. I taught you and I know.

You made the team, but others made it win.

A ready smile made up for being slow.

You'd have been ordinary in the end:

the hardest worker someone ever had,

one woman's husband and one man's best friend,

recipient of cards for "world's best dad."

So why, where you'd have been, is there a blank

so huge, a hole where all thoughts go to die?

The world has only lost one of its rank

and file. You didn't even make me cry.

Why do I go outside at one a.m.

and search the stars as though I'd numbered them?

Death's Secret - Gösta Ågren

At Dusk - Gösta Ågren

I will be forgotten,

he thinks. Oblivion is

a deep mother. No one

will touch you there; no one

will forget you any more.

remains - Charles Bukowski

things are good as I am not dead yet

and the rats move in the beercans,

the papersacks shuffle like small dogs,

and her photographs are stuck onto a painting

by a dead German and she too is dead

and it took 14 years to know her

and if they give me another 14

I will know her yet . . .

her photos stuck over the glass

neither move nor speak,

but I even have her voice on tape,

and she speaks some evenings,

her again

so real she laughs

says the thousand things,

the one thing I always ignored;

this will never leave me:

that I had love

and love died;

a photo and a piece of tape

is not much, I have learned late,

but give me 14 days or 14 years,

I will kill any man

who would touch or take

whatever's left.

Richard Cory - Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean, favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich--yes, richer than a king--

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Funeral Blues - W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Beauty: A Poem - John McDermott

A few months before

my older son took his life

he called home and told his mom

I saw beauty

and know what you and Dad

have been talking about.

I was up so late last night

that I looked out from my balcony

and saw the sun come up.

It was so beautiful that

I just wanted to tell you.

I love you, Mom.