Supernova

I would like to thank Howard and Ben for publishing my poetry in the last 24 hours. In their honor, I found an old poem, which I just re did and edited and am dedicating to both of them.

That Supernova

seen in Australia last month

Not a terrible beauty waiting to be born

But slouches towards Bethlehem

in death.

How will our Sol's death look

to the great cosmos

stars and planets whirling around

-our sun transformed into a white dwarf

magnificent shells crushed by nothingness

In 4.5 billion years from now

who or what will see our death?

Will we rise like a Phoenix in a distant sky

announcing to some planet

that we have died?

Is this the way the world ends?

Not by fire

Not by ice

Not with a bang

But a whimper?

A Call To Poets: Stay Alive

So Carolyn Kellogg writes in the Los Angeles Times Books section. She reminds of of Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, John Berryman, and Rachel Wetzsteon, who recently suicided at the age of 42.

Writer Jennifer Michael Hecht, who teaches at the New School, knew Wetzsteon; her death got her thinking about artists grappling with suicide. "I’m issuing a rule," she writes. "You are not allowed to kill yourself.

Some part of you doesn’t want to end it all, and I’m talking to her or him, to that part of you. I’m throwing you a rope, you don’t have to explain it to the monster in you, just tell the monster it can do whatever it wants, but not that. Later we’ll get rid of the monster, for now just hang on to the rope. I know that this means a struggle from one second to the next, let alone one day at a time. Know that the rest of us know that among the faces we have met there are some right now who can barely take another minute of the pain and uncertainty. And we are in the room with you, going from one moment to the next, in whatever condition you manage to do it. Sobbing and useless is great! Sobbing and useless is a million times better than dead. A billion times. Thank you for choosing sobbing and useless over dead... Don’t kill yourself. Suffer here with us instead. We need you with us, we have not forgotten you, you are our hero. Stay.

Hat tip to Flawedplan- of WritheSafely Blog.... thank you.

Picture is of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. I don't know if the baby is Frieda or Nicholas, who suicided last year....

Best Gift Ever- Repost

In honor of my 2nd blogoversary, I would like to take a page from the book of Bitter Animator, and re post a post. This is my most favorite post I think from this last year. Amazing how doing something small can make you feel so good even though you never did it to get anything out of it.
*****************************

Life and gifts don't get better than this. Sometimes the best gifts in life are free- or are the cost of a first cent stamp.

Two years ago I worked on a suicide hotline. I cannot go into any more details than that.

I was on the phone one night- around twilight- with a very very suicidal man- who not only had a gun in his hand and was clicking the chambers, but he was very very very drunk.

I spent a long time talking to him, and when the call was over I went out in the pitch black night, no stars, overcast clouds blocking them. I bummed a cigarette, and a lighter, sat down on a bench and cried.

Fast forward to present day. I got a phone call from my former supervisor, and made a commitment to start again on the hotline in the fall, after completing 35 hours of class work this summer. Then she said she got a letter from someone I talked to eons ago, and wanted to mail it to me.

The letter arrived Monday. It had beautiful penmanship, but poor spelling. It went in kind, "thank you for helping me save my life that night, and the few things you have taught me have saved me again when life got that bad. Fortunately, it never got that bad again. I am working now, joined a church and dating a lovely woman.

I wrote this poem for you. I hope you like it and again, thank you.

"There is a rose in the garden

A Beauty with thorns adminst her leaves

If one desires to pick her

He must ask his hands to bleed"

.

You know, he says I saved his life, but he may have also saved mine.

Diminished

I cannot resist not posting this.  I think it applies to most of us....From Non Breaking Space blog.

measuring yourself
by shallow expectations
diminishes you

More here.

Best Gift Ever

Life and gifts don't get better than this. Sometimes the best gifts in life are free- or are the cost of a first cent stamp.


Two years ago I worked on a suicide hotline. I cannot go into any more details than that.

I was on the phone one night- around twilight- with a very very suicidal man- who not only had a gun in his hand and was clicking the chambers, but he was very very very drunk.

I spent a long time talking to him, and when the call was over I went out in the pitch black night, no stars, overcast clouds blocking them. I bummed a cigarette, and a lighter, sat down on a bench and cried.


Fast forward to present day. I got a phone call from my former supervisor, and made a commitment to start again on the hotline in the fall, after completing 35 hours of class work this summer. Then she said she got a letter from someone I talked to eons ago, and wanted to mail it to me.

The letter arrived Monday. It had beautiful penmanship, but poor spelling. It went in kind, "thank you for helping me save my life that night, and the few things you have taught me have saved me again when life got that bad. Fortunately, it never got that bad again. I am working now, joined a church and dating a lovely woman.

I wrote this poem for you. I hope you like it and again, thank you.

"There is a rose in the garden
A Beauty with thorns adminst her leaves
If one desires to pick her
He must ask his hands to bleed"

.

You know, he says I saved his life, but he may have also saved mine.

I am on a poetry kick

"Every shooting star that is seen
from Earth is an angel who has just
received his wings"
Popular Folk Myth





When surrounded by vast
nothingness-
a black sky
that is nothing
but a
cosmic wasteland
illuminated by light
from starry nightlights


Do astronauts
really pass
dead souls
on their way
to the moon?

Words
like daggers
cut
destroy
erase


my life
runs between my legs
in a pool of bitter bile


I swallow hard
to stay afloat.

Epicedium

A blood red rose
mere token of affection
mocks me
from a silvery vase
encompassing the stem.



Blindly, it stretches towards light
from a bare bulb on a cluttered desk.

Blood flows
in minute drops
on silky soft petals.
Bleeding fingers-
damn hemophiliac.


Will you put on a tourniquet
before my life ebbs out.


(Previously published on Soulful Sepulcher- thanks Stephany for giving me a start with my poetry!)

Photo used with permission from Fabio,