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.

Monday, November 11, 2024

S.A. Gerber

Comforting Peace


Still are

the heavens,

behind clouds

in the sky.

 

Aware are

the souls

who came

here to die.

 

Comforting peace

is what

they have

always prayed for

 

in the

books and

beliefs, of

their chosen folklore.

 

Laughing hard

are demons,

who know

better than all,

 

that the

higher you

ascend, the

greater the fall.




Simple Truth 

 

Wandering alone again

in the vast

‘city of sin’,

I take quite

the dim view

of former surroundings.

All things have

withered and died,

or are swiftly

in the process.

Things----

known-

unknown-

remembered-

loved…

Loved.

The dimmest of

light can still

be further eclipsed.

I hear children

and animals wailing

in failing brightness

against the muffled

sound of old

and familiar voices.

Knowing nothing comes

of a void,

I rush to

vomit in the

nearest street culvert.

The simple truth…

*we all die

a little more

by the minute.*

 

*(Something surely not

to dwell upon…

but something SURELY…

not to forget).

 



When, Where, How.

 

If these answers were

known, what could get

you to show up?

Been flying of late, still

thinking of death, however,

I have rationalized comfort

listening to dumb quotations.

Some say, “When it’s your time,

it’s your time”.

Ok…but what if it’s not, BUT

it is the guy’s time in the third row?!

I’m f--ked along with ‘his time’.

Say you get in bed for the night,

fat dumb and happy…cool sheets,

sweetheart within reach,

canine at your feet.

BAM! A quake hits…

sending the two-story next door a

tumblin’ right through the

ceiling of your bedroom,

driving both bed-posts up

your respective asses!

BAM! Dead again, through

no fault of your own!

A ‘fortune-teller’ tells you

that you will die on Friday

the thirteenth…of whatever year,

at a chili cook-off in Mazzola, Mt.,

choking on a piece of cheese!!!

Would you ever honor and tempt

the time and place by going?!

Ever even eat cheese again?!

Is it written, or is it not?

Would you want to know before?

Could you avoid the time and place

you were to …expire, or would some

f--ked-up quirk of fate put

you right at the scene?

Now…That’s A Bet!

Best for me to roll the dice, and

perhaps take an occasional float down

that huge river in Egypt…Aka…De-nial.


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