Tag: Poetry of grief

Andi Horowitz: “Shelley”

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Shelley:

November 3, 1965
June 11, 2016


                                                               “Adieu, but let me cherish, 
                                                               The hope with which I cannot part
                                                               contempt may wound, and coldness chill
                                                               But still, it lingers in my heart.”

                                                                        Farewell by Anne Brontë  



mourners filed into your home

gathered
       around a table's harsh surface 
in the dining room—
       intended for birthdays 
       Thanksgiving    Christmas—
                               gutting fish
       shrouded in a makeshift cloth


instead of a boning knife
                               razor sharp 
stockpiled photographs lay
    
two-inch thick   faded heaps—

you—
      Miss University of Florida
smile from a float
             
hold your bouquet —
        dark roses
     
over your satin sash 
over your heart-sounds 

at the beach
    tipped chin 
    brown eyes 
    
deny rain

your smile
     perched atop the grand canyon 
refuses to wilt 

free-falls all the way down 
      
the color of your sore throat


fringed in distressed mahogany 
wishing today was your birthday—
       
you’d blow out candles
             in front of me 
                
gusts blast through windows
         
winter storms july

your jigsaw-puzzle life
                  trembles
                  unlike never before

I hear your silence—  
             weightless 
        as a fly’s wing 

the sound of your gun

About the Author: Andi (Andrea) Horowitz is an older emerging poet who lives in Fort Myers, FL., with her husband and their two cairn terriers, BeCa and Bleecker. She taught high school English and speech and was also the drama coach. Her students remain one of her life’s greatest gifts. Andrea can be read in VARIANT LIT, STONE PACIFIC, NEW NOTE, GRIFFEL MAG. and others. She has a manuscript titled: tasted lies, misnomers, and balderdash in chicken soup at a fine hotel serving cheap champagne coming out later this year. Andrea dreams of a world devoid of stains.

Image Credit: Adriana Johanna Haanen “Still life of roses on mossy ground” Public domain image courtesy of Artvee

Rebecca Schumejda: “Goodnight, Saint Peregrine”

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Goodnight, Saint Peregrine 

Braindead, all the doctors agreed,
throughout the day each asked me if I was ready. 
Brahms lullaby played a half-dozen times 
while I waited for a sign.  
Both keeping you alive and letting you go
seemed somehow selfish. 
On another floor, in another unit, 
new mothers cradled lifetimes of possibilities. 

After I agreed to extubation and 
all of the machines were wheeled away, 
I could have run my fingers 
along your cracked lips or leaned in 
to feel your breath against my cheek 
but instead I anxiously hovered over you, 
my Saint Peregrine pendant, swinging above 
that frail body of impossibility. 

When our oldest called to see when 
I was coming home, I asked 
both of our daughters to say goodnight. 
I put the phone on speaker and held it close. 
Our six-year-old shouted, Daddy, sleep 
for a long time, see you tomorrow! 
as I twirled your last breath and my 
waning faith around a silver chain.

About the Author: Rebecca Schumejda is the author of several full-length collections including Falling Forward (sunnyoutside press), Cadillac Men (NYQ Books), Waiting at the Dead End Diner (Bottom Dog Press), Our One-Way Street (NYQ Books) Something Like Forgiveness, a single epic poem accompanied by collage art by Hosho McCreesh (Stubborn Mule Press) and her new collection Sentenced (NYQ Books). She is the co-editor at Trailer Park Quarterly. She received her MA in Poetics from San Francisco State University and her BA from SUNY New Paltz. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her family. You can find her online at: rebecca-schumejda.com

Image Credit: Giacomo Zampa “San Pellegrino” Public domain image courtesy of Wikimedia

Howie Good: “In Memoriam”

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In Memoriam


Sunday, you’ll have been dead a week. I sit at the kitchen table, laptop open in front of me, doing what I think you’d be doing in my place, writing something. You were a poet, a real one, a soldier with a flower in his helmet. I’m hunting and pecking when I suddenly hear the tinkling of Tibetan prayer bells. Five seconds – 10 max – pass before I realize it’s the new ringtone on my phone. A prim female voice announces, “Unknown caller.” I always just assumed Death would have the surly demeanor of the lunch ladies in a school cafeteria.

About the Author: Howie Good’s newest poetry collection, Frowny Face, a mix of his prose poems and collages, is now available from Redhawk Publications He co-edits the online journal UnLost, dedicated to found poetry.

Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Calla Lily” (2022)

Agnes Vojta: “The Topography of Grief”

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The Topography of Grief

The topography of grief is karst,
riddled with sinkholes
that suddenly open
under your feet, swallow you whole.

I don’t know what I expected
to feel. Not this emptiness.
Not nothing. I don’t cry
at the sight of my dad’s signature.

The letter from probate court
I’ve been expecting. I know
what it contains: a form letter
and a copy of dad’s will.

I cry when I pack his chessboard,
lay the wooden pieces to rest
in their velvet-lined compartments,
close the box, latch the lid.

About the Author: Agnes Vojta grew up in Germany and now lives in Rolla, Missouri where she teaches physics at Missouri S&T and hikes the Ozarks. She is the author of Porous Land, The Eden of Perhaps, and A Coracle for Dreams, all published by Spartan Press. Most recently, she has been collaborating with eight other poets on the book Wild Muse: Ozarks Nature Poetry (Cornerpost Press, 2022.) Her poems have appeared in a variety of magazines; you can read some of them on her website agnesvojta.com.

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Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Utah Karst” (2021)