the acritarch

 

 

all my images of dead animals are of those

lying on their right sides with

their legs sticking straight out. They

found Max, my neighbors Lab-mix just

this way, which I guess proves it.

 

Mothers looked away as tiny brown hands

pointed at Max for three days. Long

are those bright, Mutual of Ohama

Saturdays where a 900 year old Marlin Perkins played the

 

zoomorphic diety conceived in tiger form.

Oh how he could sing to us, taught us

that Gods presence in the Eucharist is not

corporeal but symbolic. Now

 

even the dead farm is ritual. I cant see the night

for the way lives have change. When they found

Raymond, his pockets emptied, slumped

over the wheel in front of McDonalds in broad daylight,

his legs aged and arboreal;

 

after those endless acknowlegments,

a song,

another song but this time with organ and some walking,

there was talk about unfinished letters,

like those of treason

for writing to confederate soldiers

 

or selling confederate sheet music. But in this

ceremonial kiva

the funeral directors released

four  white doves which I was told was a symbol

of purity.

 

Me and his four kids delighted in how

they flew

and flew.

Reviews

[Raymond Federle]

Wonderfully deep and stirring. There are many complex as well as subtle emotions going on here all at once. Excellent! :)

[Marie Anzalone]

acritarchs: such a delightful concept- little remanants of the past that give us absolutely no clue about themselves or the environments that produced them in utter and sheer ubiquity.

fits the theme you weave here, which seems to me to be the solemnity, absurdity, senselessness, and life-affirming concateneity of death when it appears in the midst of our busy little lives. Perhaps it is the life shells themselves that need filling and explaining, when all is said and done?

this one really moved me to think, dana. thank you.

[K. Louis]

every piece you write is such an adventure of sorts. Me and his four kids delighted in how they flew and flew...oh dana!