A Quote to Start Things Off

""I'd love to go to Santa Fe at some point, Emmett said, but for the time being, I need to go to New York. The panhandler stopped laughing and adopted a more serious expression. Well. that's life in a nutshell, aint it. Lovin' to go to one place and havin' to go to another. Amor Towles in the Lincoln Highway.

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Thursday, August 11, 2022

Poetry Friday: Hosting Next Week ,Way Back Machine This Week


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:

Margaret Simon said...

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.

Patricia Franz said...

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!

Linda B said...

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.

mbhmaine said...

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.

Linda Mitchell said...

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.

Marilyn Garcia said...

Wow, this poem leaves you with a lot to think about. Thanks for sharing!

Mary Lee said...

Tragic, and yet you've made it so poetic. Well done!

Robyn Hood Black said...

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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