Death And Morning
by
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DEATH AND MORNING
It is here... quietly. The no-sound.
The hammer of clocks, the sharp stillness
going under.
Love
has taken you away. Has given you up.
Has slashed the wrist, burnt the candle,
broken the last kiss.
And
there is no peace.... No more, after.
Only the vague inside—empty, restless.
Wondering not why, but how....
Each afternoon
from now until the next thousand torn down.
Love... has
taken you away. Lilacs still
tacked to the kitchen.
Faucet dripping; windows shut; doors
banging open. The
heart slit, and the head
thundering... here; quietly. This last prayer
laid before you. Silent, still...
“I love you.”
“... the dreams and extremes of hope and despair
which are named Death and Morning.”
—Delmore Schwartz—
Denver—
MESSAGE
Hammering
like glass through the blood-stream
burnt down
like a lost god
… into water.
The child
whispering still:
LOVE,
LOVE...
BE MEANINGFUL
(to the end), the start, the beginning.
To hear the wind reply, and the bell speak
timid.
It is all. It is yet. It is becoming.
LOVE
Love
is a simple word,
is a simple deed
done singularly
for the plural...
to make one divide,
to join with another:
to give, take, be taken by...
to become—to end
and begin
again.
Love is a complex word,
is a complex deed
… done alone,
and hopefully.
LILY
My eyes
make you beautiful
no flaw too imperfect,
no nakedness more desired
the taste: of skin and teeth,
hair and nail...
your body like fragile china
breasts: full snow, and wheat.
I would be yours
—let you have me
body, bone
soul and keep,
for as long as wind and salt
still move...
or earth's shadow crosses
LOSS
You sit with a look,
the poetry of words
never voiced, nor broken
you count the sky,
and the mountain,
shake your heart out
and add your bill....
The answer falls
into a stack of old prayers
like sand, grain after grain
each permanent ribbon
of gray
you paint your house with
and you think of a song....
And when you close your eyes,
each breath you breathe
towards sleep
it will be the fingers
you remember...
the ones you had—
the ones you dreamed to reach.
GAY...? HELL!
“Wouldn't the world
make more sense...
if sexual freedom
were treated as a question
between individuals,
instead of an unholy war?
An act of mutual love
is not a movement.”
(That is... if it's love,
and not just the “movement.”)
Art Seidenbaum,
Los Angeles Times,
August 1972—
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About the Book
DESTINY
Our lives are shaped
by who we love...
(how it goes,
or doesn't)
if in the dark
no one's voice is near
because of this
and only:
Sand, wind, time, waves.
Between the corridors of Los Angeles and Denver - the crush
of night, the stark of day - love and loss are as present as the
deserts, mountains, valleys, and canyons we veer through...
rivers or trails crossed...people and places missed or touched.
Deciding who to love, or even how - is not an option. Either one
does, or one doesn't. Even the best of choices can fail, the best
of plans can go awry. This is the story of our lives. To know the
difference between death and morning is the secret of life. There
is only the doing or the not doing. One must be led by the heart,
the mind, the spirit. And one's God. Without these, surely we will
break.
Death and Morning was the Poetry winner for the Los Angeles Book Festival, 2011-2012, and the 2012 beach book festival. It was also a winning Finalist in the 2012 International Book Awards.
About the Author
Born in Baltimore, raised in York County, Pennsylvania, Rick served in the USAF with tours in Greece, Turkey, and Germany. Rick was educated at Univ. of Md. Extension while in Europe, and in the U.S. at Santa Monica College and California State University, Northridge. Rick has lived in Los Angeles and Denver; currently in Wichita, Kansas. This is his second poetry collection in a series of three. (The other two books of poetry are: You, My Love… a diary in verse, and Death And Morning.) He has also authored three screenplays, two large stage plays (a musical-bio on “the life and times” of Stephen C. Foster, and a Biblical epic on the Saul-David-Jonathan story), plus several songs. Rick remains alone, and unmarried.
Death and Morning was the Poetry winner for the Los Angeles Book Festival, 2011-2012.