From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Mon Feb 18 2002 - 05:13:27 MST
Dear Joe Dees,
I very much liked "For Minnie Lee". I liked it so much that I was inspired
(if this is not too grandiloquent a claim) to make an attempt at blank-verse
of my own.
The Hour Before the Birds (For Liz)
It was not so much the pain
As the indignity,
It was not so much the dying
As the betrayal of her rotting flesh
Hanging from her living frame.
I cannot die like this she said,
If you love me you must help me now,
I cannot die like this.
(The machine that clamped her arm
Was marked in degrees of mercy,
The meanest at the bottom,
The most terrible at the top.)
She was breathing very slowly,
She was breathing underwater,
It seemed that every breath,
Ran crazy through the house,
Shredding books and scattering rice.
In the weakest hour of the morning,
In the hour before the birds,
The horrible bubbling breathing
Stopped.
In this, the weakest hour of the morning,
In the hour before the birds,
At last the stillness is sufficient
For the weeping to begin.
Regards
Blunderov
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 25 2002 - 13:28:43 MDT