FOUR FEATHERS PRESS ONLINE EDITION: DEAD DAYS Send up to three poems on the subject of or at least mentioning the words dead and/or day, totaling up to 150 lines in length, in the body of an email message or attached in a Word file to donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59 PM PST on November 15th. No PDF's please. Color artwork is also desired. Please send in JPG form. No late submissions accepted. Poets and artists published in Four Feathers Press Online Edition: Dead Days will be published online and invited to read at the Saturday Afternoon Poetry Zoom meeting on Saturday, November 16th between 3 and 5 pm PST.

Friday, November 15, 2024

R A Ruadh

Two deaths


This morning I woke up

I could not remember his name


The memories of the fists

were still there although

without his name attached


they’d lost their punch


I tried to recover his name

remembering his brothers

his daughter and granddaughter


nothing


It felt so good

not having a name

to give strength to trauma


I watched it go down the drain


Eventually his name surfaced

but not from his memory but

through the relatives who understood


but it had lost its power


unconnected detached powerless

a Chinese proverb says you die twice

first your body then when your name is forgotten


This morning I woke up

without his name




Fatal friends


The viper is so small

sneaking and slithering unseen

poised and ready

to place a small fatal drop

of death if startled

the only right to exist

that it recognizes

is its own


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