Greetings Friday Poetry People. I just came back from a month volunteering at a camp in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with my family. It was an amazing time. One minor drawback was there was very little access to Wi-Fi and such things and I did not get to read many blogposts let alone participate on any Friday Poetry events.
I did get to perform some of my poetry at a crew talent show so that was good. I didn't write any poetry while I was there and am saving the one I was working on before I left for next week so today I am going back to the archives.
Here is one from 3-11-1993
Untitled
John Doe rests uneasily
Albeit eternally in the county morgue
Found outside a supermarket
Slumped against the cart return rack
On a different cart now
The contents as generic
Doe, John
Motionless on the table
A poem prepared for publication
The venomous white space atop the page
Leaves the editor no choice
But to mark the work: Untitled
An unnamed man
Alone in a dimly lit parking lot
Breathes his last amid
Unread circulars and candy wrappers
Leaving behind no glimpse of history
No hint of next of kin to alert
Height and weight can be measured
Eye and hair color observed
Blood type determined
Age only guessed at
The death certificate
Marks the cause:
Natural
Margaret is hosting this weeks Poetry Friday event at Reflections on the Teche. You can check it out by clicking here. Today is Margaret's Birthday so you may want to congratulate her on that as well.
8 comments:
Your poem about poor John Doe is sad. It's hard to think that there are people who have no one to love them or care for them at the end.
I like the idea of writing a poem about John/Jane Doe. Might be a future challenge for my poetry group. Thanks! BTW -- I spent a week in the UP this month (biking a loop from St Ignace to Sault St Marie to Curtis and back to St. Ignace). Beautiful shores!
Sad to read, just heard that some states are making sleeping outside a crime, yet having no recourse for those in need. It's a crazy world for the helpless. Your time at camp must have been wonderful, however. It sounds lovely.
This is sad and like Linda, I have also heard about recent laws making sleeping outside a felony. Talk about brutal and short-sighted. Thanks for sharing your poem.
My goodness...although my first reaction is, "how sad," my next is wow, what writing to put that emotion over me so fully with these stanzas. It's the little words in between "John Doe" that bring me there: uneasily, generic,venomous, untitled, dimly...but then there's that word, "natural." I wonder what John Doe thinks of his own death? Hmmmmmm.
Wow, this poem leaves you with a lot to think about. Thanks for sharing!
Tragic, and yet you've made it so poetic. Well done!
Echoing Linda B's thoughts/reactions... so sad that many die without someone to speak for them
or offer comfort at the end.
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