request and a poem

[theprohibition.livejournal.com]

My mother was just diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins lymphoma and has not been given much time left to live.  Please, leave poetry about deaths and losing family members or even getting over it or anything that can make me feel better.  I can't imagine poetry failing me now.

In return:
Why A Man Cannot Have Wings - Alfian bin Sa'at
Because he will crash land on his head, assuming it to be
The strongest part of his body.

Because someone will put up a sign that reads:
Do Not Step on the Cirrus Clouds.

Because it does not even take a man hundreds of feet above
Sea-level to learn contempt.

Because there will be new categories of handicaps: bow-wings,
Ostrich disease, scaly feathers, carousel flight syndrome,
Or at a freak show: The Amazing Wingless Wonder.

Because he will have a new weapon, gravity,
And everything he releases becomes a missile,
Even glass marbles, books, the fatal music box.

Because he is lonely enough without being able to
Frame the house he lives in between his forefinger and thumb.

Because then the sky will shed its metaphors of freedom
And become another path for him to carry his burdens.

Because there will be a popular form of suicide:
Flying into foreign airspace and being gunned down;
All it takes is a nose-tip to press an invisible blue button.

Because each death in mid-air, each comic comet plunge,
Will be another enactment of the fall of Man.

Because in concentration camps people will break wings
And use the feathers for quills to write sonnets
And pillow stuffing for innocent dreams.

Because he will have less to fantasize about, less of miracles
And the word 'levitation' will not exist.

Because there will be children who will empty their bladders
Under cloud cover in an attempt to make yellow snow.

And because he might get the wrong notion that he is closer
To heaven, when he has not even come to a mile
Within the presence of angels, despite the resemblance.

Comments

[poppyromanov.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear that :( I made a similar request a few months back, here's the link to the thread in case any of those poems appeal to you: http://greatpoets.livejournal.com/3166860.html#comments

[seasight.livejournal.com]

The Thing Is - Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.


EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT by Derek Mahon

How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.



My thoughts are with you and your family. *hugs*

[seasight.livejournal.com]

This book (http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Great-Ideas-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/0141018828/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316495194&sr=1-8) always gets me through hard times- I find it very calming and uplifting. I really recommend checking it out.

[thewickedtongue.livejournal.com]

The Yellow Dot
-Robert Bly

God does what she wants. She has very large
Tractors. She lives at night in the sewing room
Doing stitchery. Then chunks of land at mid-
Sea disappear. The husband knows that his wife
Is still breathing. God has arranged the open
Grave. That grave is not what we want,
But to God it’s a tiny hole, and he has
The needle, draws thread through it, and soon
A nice pattern appears. The husband cries,
“Don’t let her die!” But God says, “I
Need a yellow dot here, near the mailbox.”

The husband is angry. But the turbulent ocean
Is like a chicken scratching for seeds. It doesn’t
Mean anything, and the chicken’s claws will tear
A Rembrandt drawing if you put it down.


(In memory of Jane Kenyon)

[poetic-self.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear.


How It Is
By Maxine W. Kumin
Shall I say how it is in your clothes?
A month after your death I wear your blue jacket.
The dog at the center of my life recognizes
you’ve come to visit, he’s ecstatic.
In the left pocket, a hole.
In the right, a parking ticket
delivered up last August on Bay State Road.
In my heart, a scatter like milkweed,
a flinging from the pods of the soul.
My skin presses your old outline.
It is hot and dry inside.

I think of the last day of your life,
old friend, how I would unwind it, paste
it together in a different collage,
back from the death car idling in the garage,
back up the stairs, your praying hands unlaced,
reassembling the bits of bread and tuna fish
into a ceremony of sandwich,
running the home movie backward to a space
we could be easy in, a kitchen place
with vodka and ice, our words like living meat.

Dear friend, you have excited crowds
with your example. They swell
like wine bags, straining at your seams.
I will be years gathering up our words,
fishing out letters, snapshots, stains,
leaning my ribs against this durable cloth
to put on the dumb blue blazer of your death.

[poetic-self.livejournal.com]

Talking to Grief
by Denise Levertov

Ah, grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.

I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.

You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.

[elnigma.livejournal.com]

<3 this one thanks for posting

[evilstorm.livejournal.com]

I only have a song, but it's about watching a loved one die of cancer and it's written by the best lyricist I know, so I hope this is acceptable.

Matthew 25:21, by John Darnielle (of the Mountain Goats)

They'd hooked you up to a fentanyl drip
To mitigate the pain a little bit
I flew in from Pennsylvania
When I heard the hour was coming fast
And I docked in Santa Barbara
Tried to brace myself
But you can't brace yourself
When the time comes you just have to roll with the blast
And I'm an eighteen wheeler headed down the interstate
And my brakes are going to give and I won't know until it's too late
Tires screaming when I lose control
Try not to hurt too many people when I roll

Find the harbor freeway and head south
Real tired, head kind of light
I found Telegraph Road, I'd only seen the name on envelopes
Found the parking lot and turned right
I felt all the details carving out space in my head
Tropicanas on the walkway, neon red
Between the pain and the pills trying to hold it at bay
Stands a traveler going somewhere far away
And I am an airplane tumbling wing over wing
Try to listen to my instruments, they don't say anything
People screaming when the engines quit
I hope we're all in crash position when we hit
And then came to your bedside
And as it turns out, I'm not ready
And as though you were speaking through a thick haze
You said hello to me
We all stood there around you
Happy to hear you speak
The last of something bright burning, still burning
Beyond the cancer and the chemotherapy
And you were a presence full of light upon this earth
And I am a witness to your life and to its worth
It's three days later when I get the call
And there's nobody around to break my fall

here are 3 poems

[med_cat]

*Hugs*

http://med-cat.livejournal.com/420798.html

[moonglows.livejournal.com]

There was a request similar to this a couple weeks ago: http://greatpoets.livejournal.com/3247637.html#comments

Sending good thoughts your way...

[moonglows.livejournal.com]

Here's another thread you may find comforting:

http://greatpoets.livejournal.com/3249043.html#comments

John Donne, "Death be not proud"

[ancientreader]

A religious response, but one that I've found comforting even though I don't believe:

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

[laurensa.livejournal.com]

This comforted me when I lost my mom to cancer.


Death: Death Is Nothing At All
Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.
All is well.
Henry Scott Holland ~ 1847-1918
Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral ~ London. UK

[winter156.livejournal.com]

Go Down, Death by James Weldon Johnson

Weep not, weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.
Heart-broken husband--weep no more;
Grief-stricken son--weep no more;
Left-lonesome daughter --weep no more;
She only just gone home.

Day before yesterday morning,
God was looking down from his great, high heaven,
Looking down on all his children,
And his eye fell of Sister Caroline,
Tossing on her bed of pain.
And God's big heart was touched with pity,
With the everlasting pity.

And God sat back on his throne,
And he commanded that tall, bright angel standing at his right hand:
Call me Death!
And that tall, bright angel cried in a voice
That broke like a clap of thunder:
Call Death!--Call Death!
And the echo sounded down the streets of heaven
Till it reached away back to that shadowy place,
Where Death waits with his pale, white horses.

And Death heard the summons,
And he leaped on his fastest horse,
Pale as a sheet in the moonlight.
Up the golden street Death galloped,
And the hooves of his horses struck fire from the gold,
But they didn't make no sound.
Up Death rode to the Great White Throne,
And waited for God's command.

And God said: Go down, Death, go down,
Go down to Savannah, Georgia,
Down in Yamacraw,
And find Sister Caroline.
She's borne the burden and heat of the day,
She's labored long in my vineyard,
And she's tired--
She's weary--
Do down, Death, and bring her to me.

And Death didn't say a word,
But he loosed the reins on his pale, white horse,
And he clamped the spurs to his bloodless sides,
And out and down he rode,
Through heaven's pearly gates,
Past suns and moons and stars;
on Death rode,
Leaving the lightning's flash behind;
Straight down he came.

While we were watching round her bed,
She turned her eyes and looked away,
She saw what we couldn't see;
She saw Old Death.She saw Old Death
Coming like a falling star.
But Death didn't frighten Sister Caroline;
He looked to her like a welcome friend.
And she whispered to us: I'm going home,
And she smiled and closed her eyes.

And Death took her up like a baby,
And she lay in his icy arms,
But she didn't feel no chill.
And death began to ride again--
Up beyond the evening star,
Into the glittering light of glory,
On to the Great White Throne.
And there he laid Sister Caroline
On the loving breast of Jesus.

And Jesus took his own hand and wiped away her tears,
And he smoothed the furrows from her face,
And the angels sang a little song,
And Jesus rocked her in his arms,
And kept a-saying: Take your rest,
Take your rest.

Weep not--weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Do not stand by my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints upon the snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain and
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am that swift uplifting rush,
of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand by my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.