Death, the Last Visit + podcast plug
Oct. 3rd, 2012 02:08 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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greatpoetryHi guys. I hope this is allowed -- my friend Nora and I started a poetry podcast. We discuss two poems and joke about how much we hate "Wild Geese" (sorry!). It's short and somewhat funny and you might like it. We also discuss "Death, the Last Visit," which I've included below as per community rules.
Death, The Last Visit
by Marie Howe
Hearing a low growl in your throat, you’ll know that it’s started.
It has nothing to ask you. It has only something to say,
and it will speak in your own tongue.
Locking its arms around you, it will hold you as long
as you ever wanted.
Only this time it will be long enough. It will not let go.
Burying your face in its dark shoulder, you’ll smell mud and hair
and water.
You’ll taste your mother’s sour nipple, your favorite salty cock
and swallow a word you thought you’d spit out once and be done with.
Through half-closed eyes you’ll see that its shadow looks like yours,
a perfect fit. You could weep with gratefulness. It will take you as you
like it best, hard and fast as a slap across your face,
or so sweet and slow you’ll scream give it to me give it to me
until it does.
Nothing will ever reach this deep. Nothing will ever clench this hard.
At last (the little girls are clapping, shouting) someone has pulled
the drawstring of your gym bag closed enough and tight. At last
someone has knotted the lace of your shoe so it won’t ever
come undone.
Even as you turn into it, even as you begin to feel yourself stop,
you’ll whistle with amazement between your residual teeth oh jesus
oh sweetheart, oh holy mother, nothing nothing nothing ever felt
this good.
Death, The Last Visit
by Marie Howe
Hearing a low growl in your throat, you’ll know that it’s started.
It has nothing to ask you. It has only something to say,
and it will speak in your own tongue.
Locking its arms around you, it will hold you as long
as you ever wanted.
Only this time it will be long enough. It will not let go.
Burying your face in its dark shoulder, you’ll smell mud and hair
and water.
You’ll taste your mother’s sour nipple, your favorite salty cock
and swallow a word you thought you’d spit out once and be done with.
Through half-closed eyes you’ll see that its shadow looks like yours,
a perfect fit. You could weep with gratefulness. It will take you as you
like it best, hard and fast as a slap across your face,
or so sweet and slow you’ll scream give it to me give it to me
until it does.
Nothing will ever reach this deep. Nothing will ever clench this hard.
At last (the little girls are clapping, shouting) someone has pulled
the drawstring of your gym bag closed enough and tight. At last
someone has knotted the lace of your shoe so it won’t ever
come undone.
Even as you turn into it, even as you begin to feel yourself stop,
you’ll whistle with amazement between your residual teeth oh jesus
oh sweetheart, oh holy mother, nothing nothing nothing ever felt
this good.
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no subject
Date: 2012-10-03 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-04 12:01 am (UTC)I've got a love/hate thing with this poem. I love it, I do....but I feel like it's missing a stanza, at the very least, two lines, that would identify who Death comes for in this manner. Not a stillborn infant, not a child-victim of rape, who? Well...does that need to be addressed? That's where my internal editor gets out the red pen and I've decided, that yes, it would be so much fucken stronger with a qualifying "who?"
no subject
Date: 2012-10-04 08:56 pm (UTC)I also think these lines strongly imply sexual experience. It's someone who has a long history of sex, who knows how they like it. It's not a universal experience of death.
"It will take you
as you like it best, hard and fast as a slap across your face,
or so sweet and slow you’ll scream give it to me give it to me
until it does."
no subject
Date: 2012-10-04 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-10 12:26 am (UTC)2. marie howe teaches at my school! :D
3. omg you are the only person i have ever met who hates "wild geese" as much as i do please marry me.