Three good pictures

My life is a short, intense celebration. 
With almost every breath I take, I get 

a new sense and understanding 
of the linden tree, of ripened wheat, 

of hay, and of mignonette. 
I suck everything up into me. 

When it’s warm and I’m tired, I sit down 
and weave a yellow garland, a blue one, 

and one of thyme. A reaper in a blue smock. 
He mows down all the little flowers 

in front of my door. I know now of two 
other pictures with death in them.

(From Paula Modersohn-Becker’s diary, 1900

Turned to glass

The bodies in the container 
partially thawed, moved, 
and then froze again 

— stuck to the capsule 
like a child’s tongue 
to a cold lamp post. 

Eventually the bodies 
had to be thawed to unstick, 
re-frozen and put back in. 

Cracks appeared,
cutting through the skin 
and subcutaneous fat, 

all the way down 
to the body wall or 
muscle surface beneath. 

The organs were cracked. 
The spinal cord was snapped 
and the heart — was fractured.

(From Horror Stories of Cryonics)

The last supper

Looking back, 
I think the regret about the fruit salad 
was stronger than fear of all being over.

Nella Last

All the day, the tinkle of glass 
being swept up and dumped in ash-bins 
like wind-bells in a temple, 
together with the knock-knock 
as anything handy was tacked 
in place over gaping windows.

I look at a tin of fruit longingly, 
now that fruit is so scarce.
Little sparrows had died as they crouched. 
It looked as if they had bent 
their little heads in prayer.
Not one falleth that He does not see.

Poles, Czechs, Greeks, all sparrows. 
I’ve opened the tin of fruit salad, 
and put my best embroidered cloth on, 
and made an egg-whip instead of cream. 
I’ll not take my clothes off tonight. 
I’ll give the animals an aspirin.

(from Nella Last’s World War II diary, 1941)

Imprint

Drove in a blue daze thru Kinderhook 
with it almost raining. 
Lights on in the stucco house. 
Jason in a steep decline, screamed 
is the damn house on the market, 
you don’t need a sump pump. 

Dust, sawdust, a week of spaghetti 
glued on plates piled near the sink. 
I try to make tea out of dust. 
See my own house exploding like a baby 
left alone in a house with no food 
chewing on electric wires. By four

sawdust glues my eyelids together 
and I curl into a cocoon of myself 
under a quilt where it’s black. 
I wake up dragged down too, wanting 
to sleep thru the month 
tho the bed smells of cats. 

The pizza Jason brings onto the blue spread 
dries. A pawmark hardens in it 
like catprints in old bricks. 
We put our names in the cement last August 
and the cat’s paw on a day 
it was too hot and humid to dry.

(From Lyn Lifshin’s Diary, 1977)

The fires of the dead

The sea has for several days
been growing angrier; and now
the muttering of its surf sounds

far into the land. It always
roughens thus during
the Festival of the Dead.

And on the sixteenth day,
after the shōryōbune have been launched, 
all the fishermen remain at home. 

For on that day the sea
is the highway of the dead.
Upon that day is it called Hotoke-umi—

the Buddha-Flood—the Tide
of the Returning Ghosts. 
And ever upon the night

of that sixteenth day—
all its surface shimmers with faint lights
gliding out to the open, 

and there is heard a murmuring of voices, 
like the murmur of a city far-off—
the indistinguishable speech of souls.

Then will the dead rise tall, 
and reach long hands and murmur: 
Tago, tago o-kure!—tago o-kure!

(From the journal of Lafcadio Hearn, 1891)

To master crime

On the day a criminal decides 
he is smarter than the police, 
he moves that much closer 
to the moment of his capture. 

It takes an amazing amount of cunning 
to master crime. Live in best hotels. Buy 
diamonds with cash from Cartier’s when I 
want to sell a hot one. Women are stools,
dogs love the taste and smell of cinnamon.
Make sure it is same cut and purity.
Believe opposite of what people say,
leave phoney overcoat button at scene.
I wonder a good deal about whether 
I’m crazy or not. Solid gold armor.
Use sneeze powder to foil capture,
sold in novelty stores. Rich people live 
on Number Ten Hill in Baltimore;
go down through roof or up through floor.

(From 1950’s Iowa burglar Michael Sutton’s notebook)

panting flowing breathless

Heavy, tormented waves, 
tossing in the rising tide 
and smashing on the beach in white surf 
and masses of phosphorous. 

The twilight of a dark night at sea. 
Vivid jags of lightening 
showing us to each other. 

Out until up to our shoulders, 
the waves dashed over our heads. 
Swimming, swimming out to infinity—
racing in under the pulsing water 
to the solitary light on shore. 

Swimming far out we slipped off 
our bathing suits and let 
the water caress our naked forms.
But the heavy waves swept us in.

(Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s diary, 1929)