Death Comes as a Surprise
Fame
Crown
Adoration
Cannot save one
Newborn or
Full-grown
From what seems
An untimely death
When the appointed
Time arrives
And there is a ‘time’
For each of us
A day circled on
The calendar
With child-like
Surprise
We grieve
Shouldn’t we
Expect death
With each
Tick of the clock
The same
Expectation
We experience
Each day
Holding our breath
In the moments
Before
The sun rises
Over the mountain
To light the world
Anew
Note: This morning, I
read of the untimely death of the much-loved actor, Phillip Seymour Hoffman. So many words offered in the wordle, and yet
I only used a few, my thoughts could not be limited to that little black
rectangle of words.
______________________
Maureen Doallas in this Image-ine exercise
based on “Jumprope, Pink Room,” a painting by Lisa Hess Hesselgrave.
Jumprope was Made for
Jumpin’
Pink the color of my
heart
The inside of my
mouth
The color of my love
The two of us
Alone on that dusty
Alone on that dusty
Southern
Summer afternoon
Grew tired of the
Dollhouse in pink
Read the news
Put down our dolls
We coiled a rope
In the form of a
snake
We tied a knot
We bundled games
The burned the ends
Could do anything
We liked
We learned the chant
We learned to jump
11 comments:
Very sad, someone gone too soon, isnt it, Annell, and yes, you nailed it - death can come at any moment and we still are always surprised when it does.
Beautiful poem…so true….& yes so sad about Phillip Seymour Hoffman…..
The words took me in the same direction. So sad.
There is a book titled "The Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker, a psychological and philosophical exploration of the phenomenon of which your poem speaks. I first read it over thirty years ago in a semester long discussion of its contents. I still own a copy and occasionally read bits and pieces, and yet, that shock of surprise runs through me when confronted with the passing of a person or pet. Your poem is so right on, so true and deeply felt, my friend,
Elizabeth
Two exceptional poems.
Beautiful, poignant words.
all it takes is a rope, you know...any old rope will do...
death is...and it always comes as a surprise though we should know it comes for all of us...and not live like we have tomorrow...
I'm glad you did not restrict yourself. Great verses. I think I would prefer to expect life rather than death, as I would be in a permanent state of anxiety.
My brother says we all have our date circled...the only thing we really have is now, yet it is a sad reality.
it's a very good exploration, annell. i was affected greatly by his passing too and not sure why. perhaps because in some ways i identified with what i believed him to be, odd, an outcast, trying to grasp at the straws of life. i don't know ... certainly he had formidable talent and unimaginable demons. i'm so sorry for he and his family.
but in reading your piece, even though i so often demand we think of death, i realize we have one day of death and yet countless (until retrospect:) days of living. there is vastness before our undoing. while we must remember the end, we must be in the moments also))))) i see this in your poem, this living.
xo
erin
Well, as Jim Morrison put it, "the future's uncertain and the end is always near"...or, if you prefer the more steely somber statement of his, "no one here gets out alive". We're so busy living, it seems, that we are surprised at death approaching. And maybe that's a good thing. Who wants to be preoccupied with the end when there is so much richness that calls us in this life? Just the same, we all have our end in the end. And maybe that, too, has a function, as your poem reminds us...we never know when it's our time. Seize the day.
-Nicole
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