by Janet Hanna
Even now,
At the moment of my death,
I put my hand in yours,
As I have done for years,
And wait, as always,
For your strength to bolster mine.
I can hear Emily’s fly
Buzzing in my head.
It seems incongruous here
In the sterile whiteness of this room.
How odd that nothing seems to matter now.
The recent group suicide of the Heaven’s Gate community is quite a fascinating and vivid example of the power of Faith in the Greater Glory of a Higher Calling. It doesn’t matter if you support how Heaven’s Gate chose to express their Faith – their action is a curious study of a group’s dynamic ability to move beyond the physical world and reach out to touch something greater than themselves.
by Alma Johnson
Mark –
I see the sunrise through
your eyes –
the birds singing your song.
The trees whispering –
your name – in my heart.
The wind howling your pain,
and now mine.
Continue reading → Mark
by Steve Gaines
post-bypass…
written February 21, 1995
across my room in the other bed
behind the drawn curtain
lies an old man dying without his beard
clinging noisily to one more night of life
[Author’s Note: This poem appears in my play, The Weeping Water Cafe.]
I was kneeling, pulling dandelions
when I heard it.
There, under the mock black cherry tree
a young rabbit flat on its back
limp,
a broken toothpick spine.
The wail
describes an
underside ripped clean of fur
oozing red
exposing a pink
diaphragm.
Across the lawn
calm,
nodding,
the cat.
My hands
are city clean.
I consider nursing
or twisting the head.
Quieter now.
I name it Gregory.
His life stains my palms.
The eye closes.
An ear droops.
Last gasps
dribble
from my bleeding fists
and seep into patio cracks.
I open the garbage can,
place Gregory inside the
Gillette Dairy Ice Milk carton
and replace the aluminum lid
that doesn’t begin to muffle
the heartbeat in my fingertips.
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