2 Comments


  1. THANATOPSIS

    1.
    Only the good die young. Beauty is skin-deep.
    Nothing lasts forever. Who arrogated wisdom
    to make these stick? That mottled-wing moth
    flops like fish fallen from clouds, and perishes
    in a quick quiver on the rough-hewn porch.

    It is beautiful even in death. Gusts broke its
    wings before it could alight on a lit window.
    Would it had burned in the tempting blaze
    of a flame, and made for a brighter lamp!

    Its brief flight might have meant darkness
    would have lost to light, and walls moved
    with lovers watching their shadows merge.

    2.
    A hardy mosquito dives kamikaze-like on
    denim pants, attempts a quixotic thrust,
    and gets upended with a broken sting, its
    hindmost legs shaking in rigour mortis.

    It is ugly in death. It had just been hatched.
    Starkly enough, it dies while mooching a drink.

    —Albert B. Casuga
    09-09-11


Comments are closed.