Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Le Revenant Deux

Before she bled to death
in an old porcelain tub
with claw feet
and a multitude
of scratches,
in student housing,
like a Roman matron
in disgrace,
she published
precious poems
about carnivals
and clowns
in little magazines,
flung about
by smaller presses.

He lived sixty years
longer than she,
singing dark songs
about shamans
cloaked in parrot feathers.

Each day,
dancing on one foot
before a jaundiced flame,
he swallows
her sword of madness
and digests the darkness
her bright brogue disguised.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been reading you and have to say, I very much like this one.It conjures up wonderful images within my mind. Well done, you.

kwh said...

This one arose from the memory of a friend, a young poet, who killed herself in 1975. I was editing a literary magazine then, and I met her when she walked in with a handful of really good poems, which I scooped up immediately. We met a few times afterwards but my the end of the year she dead. I never knew why.

Thanks for reading Sarah.

Anonymous said...

No, thank you for writing! Poets are such tortured Souls and so sad when they leave our world because there are not enough of them. Do you mind if I post your Poem (you sent me via email) on my Blog?
It's too beautiful not to share.