Where Fallen

Where fallen, a pelican
Perfectly displayed in wind drifted sand
Spread wings and feathers,
And spine extended, dies
Headless like a fallen angel
Forgotten and forsaken
By all except the flies.

Residuum

Photo: Diego Fernandes 2009

The heart of darkness beat
A pulse in my dream
Damp in tropic heat.

Dread Word’s iron hold,
Sweeps me from the wakeful
Toward sanguine fantasy.

Surging through adamantine forests
A great green river swirls
Twixt heart and lungs and head.

Dive I must into that verdant stream
My breath padlocked for safekeeping
My nerve steeled against discovery.

The surface ripples origined
Of an abatis of corpses
Lost to atavistic impulse.

Bodies snagged in the past
Strangers and friends
Gone, dressed in memory.

Destiny, a cruise companion
Had bought drinks all around
Laced with primitive venom.

Surfacing, I found allies vanished
Lights darkened; myriad death
Turned them all legend.

A hero, a suicide, a mystic
Fouled against martyrdoms
In a theater of ages.

Distemper painted souls
Hung drying from sky balconies
To horrify the living.

Gone

Ave Maria, gratia plena;

Another good friend died, just shrank away
From cancer, like all the others.

Still making little jokes last week,
Now she has stopped breathing.

Dominus tecum:

Mary wasn’t the most tragic case,
Nor one who passed quickly, easily.

She had cancer for so long,
We forgot how sick she was.

Benedicta tu in mulieribus

She had health care with a big HMO,
Advertising smiles of health for years.

We get ‘em better and you enjoy ‘em longer.
Insure with us, live longer with us.

Et benedictus fructus ventris tui [Jesus].

Health Maintenance Organization with slogan,
Empty and hollow sounding like an oil drum.

Best put yourself in hospice care,
That’s what we recommended.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,

We do all that can be done.
We count this as a success story.

She made it through the treatments,
We did our part well.

Ora pro nobis peccatoribus,

HMO said more people are surviving
The big C, the dread C.

Is anyone alive today who
Hasn’t had a victim relative?

Great Aunt Nora, three grandparents,
Great Uncle, who else?

Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.