We Are the Dead

[CdnReader]

.


We are the dead.

We sit in our wheelchairs, heads bent, motionless,
on either side of dim hospital corridors,
and you wend your way between,
pretending not to see us,
avoiding our seemingly sightless gaze
and our seemingly useless outstretched arms.

And we lurk, unobserved, in quiet corners
and inside little-known passages,
amongst the gurgles and burps,
the thumps and the thuds,
the crackles and the cries and the rabid screams,
and we hide in the silences too
– those overwhelmingly dark silences
that cover all.

But our sightlessness is a fallacy,
for we see you in your every step,
and we tear at the tails of your coat,
and we gnash our teeth when we see you gloat,
and we bide our time,
and we wait.

We are the dead.

And you pretend we do not exist.



-- cdn/05oct08

[motherhubbard]

A sad and frightening poem, Cdn. I’ve been thinking of you.

[Schizo-Manic]

I enjoyed reading this poem it made me appreciate my neighbor who recently passed away. The last stanza brought everything into perspective.

I like how you connected the 1st stanza

"avoiding our seemingly sightless gaze
and our seemingly useless outstretched arms."

and reiterated "sightlessness" in the last stanza


But our sightlessness is a fallacy,
for we see you in your every step,
and we tear at the tails of your coat,
and we gnash our teeth when we see you gloat,
and we bide our time,
and we wait.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Impossible for me to comment on this without the knowledge of what you've been and are still going through. But I think I could risk saying, as if I didn't know about your recent travails, it's wonderfully lucid and strong and I especially admired:


.and our seemingly useless outstretched arms.

and this brutally (?) strong ending:


But our sightlessness is a fallacy,
for we see you in your every step,
and we tear at the tails of your coat,
and we gnash our teeth when we see you gloat,
and we bide our time,
and we wait.

We are the dead.

And you pretend we do not exist.



-- cdn/05oct08

I love you!!!!!

[symphony]

Impossible for me to comment on this without the knowledge of what you've been and are still going through. But I think I could risk saying, as if I didn't know about your recent travails, it's wonderfully lucid and strong and I especially admired:



and this brutally (?) strong ending:

I couldnt say it as clearly as he did. But we share the same thoughts.


But i can say this bit as clearly as him:
I love you!

[lsmit4]

Nice and dark. Beautiful!!

[CdnReader]

Thanks for your comments, everyone. I lubs you all to bits too. :)

[TheFifthElement]

Hi Cdn.

Without knowing the circumstances of how/why this was written it would be a powerful piece. Knowing makes it painful to read. It is a beautiful poem, very strong. Especially these lines:


and you wend your way between,
pretending not to see us,
avoiding our seemingly sightless gaze
and our seemingly useless outstretched arms.


and we hide in the silences too
– those overwhelmingly dark silences
that cover all.


We are the dead.

And you pretend we do not exist.

It must have been a difficult poem to write, but cathartic I hope. It reminded me in tone of several poems in an anthology called Being Alive by Bloodaxe Books. Three in particular called Changing the Subject by Carole Satyamurti, Here by Ken Smith and The Unprofessionals by U A Fanthorne. I'll PM them to you.

[firefangled]

CR I have been traveling in and out of Florida for weeks. Tonight is the first night I have time and you make spend it gladly on gold.

I do not know the circumstances of this, but you have written so lucidly and precisely I do not need to. I second all the great comments about this poem. Your style has always captivated me and the matter of fact stare of this is gut wrenching.

[qimissung]

Hello Cdn. You already know this is good. You probably knew it as you wrote it. You went to the hard place, the place we none of us want to go and you looked at it long and hard. It is actually a place that exists inside all of us, though we would dearly love to pretend otherwise. That's what makes you a poet.

[Virgil]

A good poem Cdn. I really thought this stanza was exceptional:

And we lurk, unobserved, in quiet corners
and inside little-known passages,
amongst the gurgles and burps,
the thumps and the thuds,
the crackles and the cries and the rabid screams,
and we hide in the silences too
– those overwhelmingly dark silences
that cover all.
All those gurgles and burbs make for a great sounding poem. ;)

I don't usually refute the theme of a poem, but I just wanted to say you are not dead and you are not ignored. I see your pleasant face. :)

[dibyendra]

We are the dead.

We sit in our wheelchairs, heads bent, motionless,
on either side of dim hospital corridors,
and you wend your way between,
pretending not to see us,
avoiding our seemingly sightless gaze
and our seemingly useless outstretched arms.

And we lurk, unobserved, in quiet corners
and inside little-known passages,
amongst the gurgles and burps,
the thumps and the thuds,
the crackles and the cries and the rabid screams,
and we hide in the silences too
– those overwhelmingly dark silences
that cover all.

But our sightlessness is a fallacy,
for we see you in your every step,
and we tear at the tails of your coat,
and we gnash our teeth when we see you gloat,
and we bide our time,
and we wait.

We are the dead.

And you pretend we do not exist.



-- cdn/05oct08

It's a very good poem which interconnects to our real life career too and even with the online community like this one where most of the authors remain dead as they don't exist. I might be wrong about my assumption but this is how I related with this poem.



And we lurk, unobserved, in quiet corners
and inside little-known passages,
amongst the gurgles and burps,
the thumps and the thuds,
the crackles and the cries and the rabid screams,
and we hide in the silences too
– those overwhelmingly dark silences
that cover all.

I liked the theme and the imagery of this poem which has a very punchy lines too. :thumbs_up

[andave_ya]

woah. I want to comment, but I'm not sure what to say.

[CdnReader]

Thanks so much, Fifth, Firefangled, Qimi, Virg, Diby, and Andave. It was indeed a very personal and very difficult piece to write. The individual lines and phrases haunted me for nights before I put it into final form and posted it.

Fifth, thank you for the PMs. I have read the three poems over and over, and they are very meaningful to me (as you knew they would be). I'm adding the volume to my next Amazon order. I will reply to you in more detail as soon as I am able.

[TheFifthElement]

I'm glad you liked them Cdn.

For the record ('cos obviously I had a bit of a brain meltdown) the volume they were taken from is actually called Staying Alive (Being Alive was the follow up). Details here, if anyone's interested:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1852245883/wwwbloodaxdem-21
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1852246758/wwwbloodaxdem-21
or
http://www.amazon.com/Staying-Alive-Poems-Unreal-Times/dp/1401359264/ref=pd_bbs_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223650109&sr=8-4
http://www.amazon.com/Being-Alive-Neil-Astley/dp/1852246758/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223650219&sr=1-4

(Cdn - I've sent you a link from Amazon.ca)

[hoope]

I greatly admire you .. and the poem is so sad and marvelous..
am sorry 4 ur pain.. but am sure that u can come over it..
life sucks sometimes but we gotta live.

[Pendragon]

Heartbreaking but true to life poem! Encore! Encore!

[CdnReader]

Thanks, Hoope and Pen. I appreciate your comments.

[PrinceMyshkin]

At the suggestion of Sophia I am bringing this, Donna's last thread, back into play and adding this, slightly revised from my "The Mirthful, Dolorous Adventures of Poem" thread:




Poem receives the news
that a friend of his has taken a turn for the worse.
Not her first such turn
but almost certainly
her next to last.

How many turns
do we get
before we return
to what we were
before we were conceived?

Donna?

Donna?

How I will miss you, my friend...

[Pendragon]

This line really makes this poem!


And you pretend we do not exist.


:thumbs_up

[a_little_wisp]

.

amongst the gurgles and burps,
the thumps and the thuds,
the crackles and the cries and the rabid screams,
and we hide in the silences too
– those overwhelmingly dark silences
that cover all.

...

and we tear at the tails of your coat,
and we gnash our teeth when we see you gloat...



-- cdn/05oct08

Gracious, I love this writing. The diction, the imagery - beautiful. "Lurk" - that word makes my stomach flip in an unpleasant way. Quite a mood you've set here. Very dark.

From every one's comments, I'm guessing that something awful happened... I do hope things get better.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Monday, February 16, 2009 7:30 AM
Subject: She is at peace now ...

It is with a sad heart that I am letting you know of Donna's passing this morning around 6:30 am. Our cousin stayed the night with Donna and was there to comfort her.

Sadly,
Donna's sister Sandra

[blp]

I didn't know her, even on here, but this makes me very sad. Condolences, Prince, and her other friends on here.

[TheFifthElement]

Please join the thread of condolence: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41886

[mazHur]

CDN seemed to know she was going to meet the Supreme One as she wrote her poem. Oh, CDN, I can't believe you are no more in this world! Yet another rose this earth has swallowed!
God bless you, CDN....you were a great friend and a person in all respects. We are sad............

May your soul rest in eternal peace!
Maz

[mazHur]

You are not dead,
my dear Donna;
You will always live
In our hearts
till eternity!

[quasimodo1]

"Courage is not the absence of fear but the judgment that something else is more important than fear." -- Ambrose Redmoon

[PrinceMyshkin]

"Courage is not the absence of fear but the judgment that something else is more important than fear." -- Ambrose Redmoon

Yes, she had that! God bless you and all those who encountered and recognized the beauty of her soul! Isn't that what "Mahatma" means as applied to Gandhi: Great soul?