I saw an old man today
winding an old watch
twisting the stem back and forth
tightening its spring
so fragile a moment time
hanging on a thin wisp
of coiled steel giving
the mechanism its life
each second’s tick counting
to the inevitable moment when
there are no fingers to wind when
its need has ended and life
for its creation ceases
Isn’t that our story too?
©2013, Donald Harbour
This particular form of poetry was developed by Marvin Bell and his Dead Man Poetry. Mr. Bell explains it in his own words:
The form is comprised of two sections. One is titled “The Dead Man and …” and the second “More About the Dead Man and … .” All lines are written as sentence lines and enjambment matters quite a bit. The first two lines generally turn back on each other. The two versions seem to discover or expose different things about the Dead Man, one more internal in nature, the other external.
With apologies to Marvin Bell!
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Live as if you were already dead.
- Zen admonition
1. About the dead man and poetry
The dead man is not a poet for he does not comprehend
the shades and nuances of meaning.
Even though he cannot understand, the dead man utters
words with weight.
Arcane in life, the dead man is the papyrus upon which
is written the prose of time.
For him time has no meaning other than dividing day from night.
He has always been and will always be the digger of incantatory
graves, the filler of assonance holes.
The mere existence of him does not create meaning for his
translation into thought lacks content.
In thought the dead man is described by lyrical cantata and
linen shrouded psalms.
There is never music in his rhyme for his speech is not
connected to the song of the universe.
Whenever there is hope, love, vision, purpose: he consumes
them from a burial ash urn.
Lacking the eyes to see other than his self, he has shunned the
visceral meat of satisfaction.
Living is not a choice or an occurrence for in living there can
be supreme gratification without desire.
Yet, for him the skill to convey profound emotional insight is
a death march through a literary nightmare.
He cannot perform his work since he has no ability to create
the most indistinct utterance of sound.
He has become a scapular shell of dried skin hanging in an
ancient stony chapel, weighted down by the chant of hooded
vicars who would utter those poetic verses he could not scribe.
The dead man has become the succulent pupa of belief that shares
no today, no tomorrow, only the injustice of the past where
there is no poetry of life.
2. More about the dead man and poetry
The dead man never could be a part of a slam.
The dead man could not produce a readable chapbook.
His only concern is the stillness and breathlessness of cold marble.
For him the dank earth is a Ginsberg elegy.
The Dead man could not withstand the withering wind of criticism
without disintegrating.
Never having acuity has given him no useful verse.
It could not be said of him that he had a poetic wisdom tooth for
dead man had lost his teeth.
When dead man is want to reason, he fails not understanding
the why.
© 2010, Donald Harbour
Autumn woods
Strolling down a pebble strewn path
each footstep a Rice Crispy morning,
diamond dew is fresh on the grass,
trident tips of oak tree leaves
are decorated with shining pearls,
sunlight caresses each watery crystal
gently nudging them to the ground,
the autumn air carries a heavy scent,
primal, cool, humid, earthy,
it is the aphrodisiac of nature,
exciting Gaea to birth the season
slithering creatures move slower,
pest of the air hide, finally satisfied,
the forest is yawning, desiring rest,
it’s stained glass pristine cathedral
a montage of red, yellow, purple and brown,
giving life to this wondrous symphony
it is time to reflect on the past,
a time to cloak in this quilted moment,
a time to look forward to renewing,
a time to curl up in the crib of creation.
@2012, Donald Harbour
I do not know when it began or when
breath gave me the French kiss of life
but, I do remember its naked entrance
awash in birthing color, red, red as blood.
Life begins with a crimson passion,
a spontaneous ignition of the soul,
a firing of the spirit’s, spirituality, an
exploding kaleidoscope of pigments.
The nurturing soil of being dusky brown,
the rich fertile nutrient of beginning, rooting
flesh to bone, skin to flesh, mind to body,
a garden of composted existence.
Knowing is a universe of eternal blue,
a velvet dark blue of limitless forever,
pulling, inviting, a challenge to humankind
to comprehend the what and why.
Opening the mind’s eye stirs awakening,
surrounded by the green of our mother,
her trees, flowers, a teeming growing bounty,
a blinding awe of her sustaining abundance.
The firmament bares burnished golden hue
the purse of eternity gathering coin,
all the things we do or do not do, the gleaming
repository of the soul’s resurrection.
©2012, Donald Harbour
In the west skies have darkened,
roiling morning clouds advance.
The sun lies hidden in the east,
a grey cloak over its face.
Pregnant mares thunder overhead,
their hooves beating a drum roll.
There is a scent on the wind,
Mother Nature’s elemental perfume.
Earthy, calming, full of promise,
Gaea toils to bring forth life,
her sweet sweat seminal.
All existence pauses in anticipation,
Obedience to the wonder of creation.
©2012, Donald Harbour
There are stories in lines,
Those hand palm creases,
Prairie trails disappearing,
Receding cloud wisp,
Lines are tomorrow’s fortune
And, the story of the past,
Every face carries its memories,
A bible of life for all to see,
Telling joys and heartache of living,
A newborn baby has no lines,
The long lived old man has many,
In the end, the burden lifted,
When there is nothing more to read,
When that whispering breeze blows,
Those lines soften and disappear,
Swept up with the soul’s flight.
©2012, Donald Harbour
I dreamed that one held the scepter
of life. Not a god, not a beast, not
a government, not the whole of the universe.
I dreamed a child and I knew the meaning.
©2012, Donald Harbour
I lay among the thorns of life but do not feel the pain, for the sweetness of it's beauty is the salve that blunts each stabbing prick.
The garden knows the direction!
Each morning the flowers face the east,
brandishing blossoms like out stretched arms,
praising the arrival of the sun below the trees.
The flowers know God and he, she, it,
knows them. Their fragrance the scent
of sweet creation, perfume from their souls.
Heady splashes of color shout the joy of
rootedness and purpose. While they sleep
in winter they plan and write their
canticles to silently chant them in spring.
Now I stand with them and feel the warmth
of my creator’s blessing, painting my face
with golden light, drawing me to the earth’s bosom.
How did the flowers come to remember that
which humans have so long ago forgotten?
©2012, Donald Harbour
It’s Earth Day, remember our mother, Gaea.
“My God,” cried the supplicant,
expressing belief in extremity,
that token labium of the metaphysical.
We are all the hoarders of borders,
living on imagined deckle-edged paper,
there writing our circumscribed lives.
Each defining the selvage of our fears,
consternation of woven limitations, we are
fettered by a bête noire tenant of the soul.
At times, others handcuff us to a purlieus bed,
accepting, seeking release from dragging our yokes,
then, refusing to master the pale of our requiem.
Lives lived in containment, shackled by convergence,
never venturing into the freedom of self, never
bounding past our own hobbling erosive manacles.
They are meant to contain, they are control,
the pestilence of living that defines what we become.
When the lights go out we are each confined,
bound by dirt, plastic, wood, or brass jar,
that is the environ of our material existence,
rest, peace within a packaged repository.
We do not realize there is no caracole,
only in life ending release of the energy within,
will we understand its limitlessness, and the
boundless freedom of being one with creation.
©2012, Donald Harbour
“You are too hard on yourself.”
Harshly, I spurn the comment
indulging a moment of introspection,
examining the corpus of worms
those that incessantly eat at life,
gnawing away its fine veneer,
until all that is left resembles
a wrinkled hardened prune pit.
“What’s done is done.”
That profitable observation,
never a coin exchanged for it.
Having made the staves of my barrel,
forming my chariot of journey,
caught in the river’s current
there is no turning back,
once it rushes forward, nothing
but the roaring falls of Niagara.
“How will you be remembered?”
That is the folly of a human quest,
interpretation determines memory,
everyone will be what others want
belief is the only logic left.
Ashes have no memory, no DNA,
nothing that resembles what was,
anyway, it does not matter,
memory is as complacent as thin air.
©2012, Donald Harbour
