Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A PORTFOLIO OF SKETCHES: THE VISIT OF DEATH, by PAUL FORT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A PORTFOLIO OF SKETCHES: THE VISIT OF DEATH, by                    
First Line: A small, pale hand brushes against the lock, lengthens, and with one
Last Line: Of the moon.
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


A small, pale hand brushes against the lock, lengthens, and with one finger
upsets my sleeping-draught.

Discreetly a light foot tiptoes by.
I call.
But there is no reply.

Can it be that it is snowing in my warm room?

Disdainfully Death sits beside my fire, he waits my hour, his tower of little
bones, ranged on my chair, gleams in the embers glare like a plant of
strawberries. On his knees a living toy he dances that twinkles and blinks and
gives soft glances.

Tinkle of bells. . . . Is this delirium? Are the horses there? Has the hour for
departure come?

No, 'tis Death that rises. The slim tower rocks. It is white and rose like a
minaret. No, Death stands, all his joints he cracks, he stoops on a moon-stone
his toy to whet. -- Good, he touches my shoulder, calm and steady.

"My son, are you ready?"

Inadvertently, a little random blow of that glistening plaything sets my spirit
free, and I can feel it go, in rhythmic ecstacy, to wash its linen in the light
of the moon.





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