Gusty

In memory, everyone is immortal...

The reapers have gathered on the hillside
a dark, soft mass
speaking in hushed tones
raising scythes
preparing
again
for decent…

It's as though we'd gathered at her wake
three years before she died
A single mother
struggling to grow two children
never enough money
never enough time
drowning sorrows in cough medicine
and powdered dreams

Everything seemed to go wrong
as a rule of thumb…
she'd tattooed on her n*****s

Intrinsic fate always at odds with entropy,
she'd stay up late
echoing the apartment with the staccato rhythm
of earth-bent fingers on yellowing keyboard

Sex, for her, was a way of life
a plaything
neon yellows and greens blister packed
buzzing and straining
against the polymer
of her thin-stretched life

It's a shame…
we watched her die a little every day
and never lit the funeral pyre

Among so many lights,
we never noticed the loss of gleam
from one that strained against the reaper's wind

… pitching the last cigarette butt,
shouldering the solemn weight
of folded steel and bone-light wood,
the reapers sigh
pause

descend
 

Reviews

[Emily Rose]

This is amazingly well written, but I assume you already know that. You use just enough imagery to make it convincing, and not quite enough to tell the whole story. I really love the ambiguity, too. Normally I'd make a chiding comment about using only minimal punctuation (usually it really bothers me when an author throws in two or three periods and a comma but has no good reason for leaving out all the rest of the punctuation) but your markings fit very well, and I especially like the absence of the period at the end - it forbids closure. I would critique this work, but I cannot - anything I say would be too trivial to mention. You've done an excellent job.

[Satine]

OOOOOOOOuch....this smokes the best s**t ever! I love, like, adore, hate you for these lines;

"Everything seemed to go wrong
as a rule of thumb�
she'd tattooed on her n*****s"

Your work only gets better and better again...

Satine

[Lee E. Powell]

Very sad and the ending was great. I don't know much about poetry except that i like this one.

[Gandré]

this is fantastic work on genre of sociocritical poetry. I liked how naturally this flows how you were constructing the tension when writing like from a distance. so we look at this poor woman from a distance and see her misery. the catastrophe of single mothers is exactly what you said: never enough money, never enough time for kids or themselves and never the right partner who stays any longer and almost always biological fathers who would not take care enough for their kids. I so hate the idea that man often would think when he is "offering his sperm" - that's already enough what he has to do, machismo concepts just don't work in modern capitalistic systems. such a catastrophe... you describe and they are millions of them.. everywhere around us .i liked how you wrote about her trying to be desirable with this - tatooing her n*****s...and even this wouldn't help. I think this is very good writing. I can't offer any critics.

[Silent Kim aka mizmetap..]

well written, Sad, the story of a single mother, raising the results of her caviler life with sex, the burden so heavy the reaper comes to relieve her. Very good.

[emz]

I just want to cry when i read this... wonderfully written... i feel so at home with this write.. i was a single mother for 16 years... he is now in the army and a well rounded young guy but over the years i have felt that despair... lovely strong emotional, err there is no more words.

thanks

[Hedra Helix]

again mastery of clean rhyme, easy ability exudes.

Ok but more so your personality, part of it at least is staring to come out to me, Its like you dip familiar in the dark but youre solid as a person it seems, there's control there, but story telling rather than living these dark places, there's an ownership and interest in the ability to bend easily both ways but youre not engulfed in these darknesses as life and being.
Hah, thats what Im getting anyway.

Fun read always.

[Angela]

Wow!! This piece is awesome. It's so full of intense feeling and emotion. A truly excellent read. Thank you for sharing. Good Job!!

[C.B.]

amazing poem... It has such a deep and dark mien. your diction and form add to the flow. Simply, amazing. Thank you for posting this. Awesome job :)

Carrie

[holly]

Excellent - any single mother who has lived through despair and the crush of everyday life could walk right into your poem and feel at home. Those watching her can't possibly see "the loss of gleam" because they themselves are trying not to be burned alive. It's a cruel world.