Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LETTERS TO YESENIN: 7, by JAMES HARRISON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LETTERS TO YESENIN: 7, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Death thou comest when I had thee least in mind said everyman
Last Line: Who turns out to be a mermaid.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Death; Vision; Yesenin, Sergei (1895-1925); Dead, The


Death thou comest when I had thee least in mind, said Everyman years ago in
England. Can't get around much anymore. So it's really a terrible surprise
unless like you we commit suicide. I worry some that the rope didn't break your
neck, but that you dangled there strangling from your body's weight. Such
physics can mean a rather important matter of three or four minutes. Then I
would guess there was a moment of black peacefulness then you were hurtling in
space like a mortar. Who can say if a carcass smiles, if the baggage is happy
at full rest. The child drowns in a predictable puddle or inside the plastic
bag from which you just took your tuxedo. The evening is certainly ruined and
we can go on from there but that too is predictable. I want to know. I have no
explanations for myself but if someone told me that my sister wasn't with Jesus
they would get an ass-kicking. There's a fascinating tumor called a melanoma
that apparently draws pigment from surrounding tissue until it's black as coal.
That fatal lump of coal tucked against the spine. And of all things on earth a
bullet can hit human flesh is one of the least resistant. It's late autumn and
this is an official autumnal mood, a fully sanctioned event in which one may
feel the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. But as poets we would
prefer to have a star fall on us, (that meteor got me in the gizzard!), or
lightning strike us and not while we're playing golf but perhaps in a wheat
field while we're making love in a thunderstorm, or a tornado take us away
outside of Mingo, Kansas, like Judy Garland unfortunately. Or a rainbow
suffocate us. Or skewered dueling that mighty forces of antiart. Maybe in sleep
as a Gray Eminence. A painless sleep of course. Or saving a girl from drowning
who turns out to be a mermaid.





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