12gauge.com 2002

Last Will & Testament

I have often said that
Old poets
Never die
They simply lose their voices
They get quiet
Fall into silence
Forget and are forgotten
And I know that I am on my way
Toward the great wordless
I see death and it is
The stark white page
The eternal pause
A period
And a blankness
An eternal
Search that stretches from
The back of your mind
To the tip of your tongue
For a word
That is never found
I am moving
In ever so certain steps
To my quiet time
Like the hush
On summer evenings
As I lay in the backyard hammock
Still and unmoving
As a figure carved in the cover
Of a sarcophagus
I see the signs
And read the foreshadowing
Yes old poets never pass away
They just somehow lose their vision
My eyes are going bad and
I can no longer see to write
I fancy myself
Like Homer
A sightless poet
I am blind as Milton
And one day soon
The only way I'll scribe
A line of verse will
Be to give dictation
To my children
Who will grimace
And make faces
That I cannot see
As my senses leave me
And my faculties flee
And all the muse
Take flight at once
Hear this from me now
That those the gods
Would destroy
They first make mute
Then take their sight
So I bequeath to you
All pretty phrases
To you all sunshine similes
To you the moonlit metaphors
I give you
All lightness and alliteration
I will you words
I leave you voice unending

Back to the top or Next

Post your comments to the Poetry Bulletin Board

About Us 9.11.01 Hardcopy Letters Writers Group Links + Staff Legal Statements