(Silent) Poetry Reading Day

Today is apparently (Silent) Poetry Reading Day throughout blogland.

Get your google on and someone tell me why exactly I chose this particular poem and who wrote it (this is like a scavenger hunt, people.  It's really not difficult.  You know a good deal about me by this time.  Take what you have and run with it.)

Some of you (Cats!) are aware already, so careful hints only, please  for my little questers, if you are already in the know. 

(speaking of hints, here's an obscure one to start you on your way.)

(I recommend reading the poem aloud.  But somewhere private so your co-workers don't think you're looney.)

(unless you're looking for a prime excuse to be sent home from the office early on this lovely Friday.  Insanity usually provides a convenient sick day and I encourage using it as often as can be managed.)

(the photo has nothing at all to do with the poem.  I'm just showing you my mittens.  They're finished.)

******************************

IF DEATH IS NOT THE END

by ______________?

If death is not the end, I'd like to know what is.

For all eternity we don't exist,
except for now.
In my gumshoe mac, I shuffled to the clifftop,
Stood well back,
and struck a match to light my life;
And as it flared it fell in darkness
Lighting nothing but itself.

I saw my life fall and thought:
Well, kiss my physics!
Time is over, or it's not,
But this I know:
Life passes through us like the blade
Of bamboo growing through the prisoner pegged down in the glade
It pierces your blood, you screaming head -
Life is what happened to the dead.

Forever we do not exist
Except for now.
Life passes through us like a beam
Of charcoal green - a golden gleam,
The opposite of how it seems:
It's not you that goes through life
– life is the knife that cuts your dream
Around the seam
And leaves you turned on in the stream, laughing with your mouth open,
Until the stream is gone,
Leaving you cracked mud,
Not even there to be absent,
From the heartbeat of a dying fish.

In bed, upstairs, I feel your pulse run with the clock
And reach your hand
And lock us with our fingers
As if we were bumping above the Pole.
Yet I know by dawn
Your hand will be dry bone
I'll have slept through your goodbye,no matter how long I wake.

Life winds on,
Through Cheri and Karl who can no longer smell chocolate,
Or see with wonder wind inflate the sail,
Or answer mail

Life flies on
Through Katy who was Catherine but is bound for Kate
Who looks over her shoulder at the demon Azmodeus,
And sees the Daily Mail

(I clutch my purse. I had it just now.)

Life slices through
The frozen butter in the Alpine wreck.

(I found your photo upside down
I never kissed a girl so long,
So long, so lovely or so wrong)

Life is what kills you in the end
And I can cry
But you won't be there to be sorry
You were made of life

For ever we did not exist
We woke and for a second kissed.

Comments

[MeBeth]

I got it! But I won't spoil the fun for others by revealing the answer.

[Peekabooh]

This is so much fun! Of course I know but I´m not gonna tell.....

Oh and I love your Mittens.

Hugs Peek

[Schrodinger]

I love you new mitts! What a fun picture.

[carrie m]

i get it! i really would have liked to have read it at work and freaked everyone out. the mitts, by the way, are faboo.

[grigorisgirl]

I know but then again I'm the one who tracked down the recording LOL
Hmm.. I Must go stick my iPod on and listen to it now while I stack the dishwasher!! Thanks for the inspiration:)

[Jessica]

Your mittens are GORGEOUS!!! I love them!

[deborah oak]

wow. that is great....thanks for participating...check out the growing list at
http://pagantheologies.pbwiki.com/Silent-Imbolc-poetry-reading-2007