First the incense,
then the Pie Jesu.
“His life was a bell,”
the deacon said,
“and the Spirit the clapper.”
(We passed her, pulling the rope.
You rang as we gathered round.)
The sun shone, and in it
I saw your Annie,
hardened but serene
from the long, depleting dying.
And the pine box – yes,
what better wood
to leave the world?
Chris Coppens, R.I.P.
But where will they go
when all the world’s waters
circle our shores?
Gracious the meadow
between thought and utterance:
would that we both dared linger!
But some thing bored
mandates completion; hence we stand
impatient with flowers.
Why hurry our fears onward to death?
Let’s stay in this place
we’ve both never been.
Whose name I never know
This mountain trail
is like the highway we took
to get to it.
Stick to it and you’re safe:
people come a’whistling,
a thousand thick
on the thread of life.
But off it there’s nobody.
Just wolves and desert
and waste and wild.
I have a collection
of cool explosions,
rocketfire dust in a bottle of blue
Where are you? Where are you?
Where are you? Where are you?
(I’m naming names. There’s no
other way to get a conviction.)
I went from sunshine to a purple forest.
To loves undeep and loves untrue.
A chilly destiny!
Ruined digits, waxy eye,
leafy stone, milky thigh –
Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Sue –
violent loves in a violet
violet hue
The funny thing (who’s laughing?)
is how many wrong turns it takes
(and in the right order)
to weep the same way every time
And tip my bushel
basket again
Utrecht Journal 