Weekly Poem #9

This poem comes from a poetry workshop exercise in which we had to take an existing text - in my case an academic paper on the death of a mentor and erase words or syllables until a poem emerges. The word order cannot be changed and the poem must reflect  or comment on the existing text.

threshold breath
         an erasure poem from the work of Katrina Jaworksi

curtained off
funeral parlour
         death
out          there
not yet
         inscripted
bodies
theoretically witness
         the unspoken invisible
alongside
         the dead
one breath
         alongside
loss

Louise is dying
   takes a breath
         eyes grow in wonder
her last breath
body limp
         wordless
waves subdue
my speaking

a slow mute hand
eyes
grown still

         words miss
embrace a silent account
         words I have
traverse speech
         fail
  limit life
one breath
         unspoken
death

seeing Louise die
         makes it clear
my death
         resonates
seeing Louise die
         attend
look
         at the other
what to do with the dead
the cadavers

         bear witness
negotiate
         with the dead
in doing
     someday
          my last breath




All poems copyright of the author Daniel G. Scott