Il n’y a rien plus sensible qu’un cadavre
(There is nothing more sensitive than a corpse)
—Anatole Le Braz, Magies de la Bretagne
The dead are easy to love
There’s not a word of a lie
Comes out of their mouths
That we do not place there
Ourselves
Do not be afraid
To say the names of the dead
You will not raise them
From their silent graves
All their ghosts are in your head
Ghosts are luxuries
Fireside and cinema
For storytellers
Who can talk about Horrors
That they are not living with
When Death is closest
Ghosts are nowhere to be seen
Nowhere to be heard
Drowned out by the terror
Of bombs birthing
More nameless numbered dead
I luxuriate
In quiet conversations
Barely audible
Amidst alarm and ennui
Cozy with my Ghost Lover
Hanfeizi said, “Ghosts and gods are easiest to draw.
People are familiar with dogs and cars,
So dogs and cars are the most difficult to draw.
As to ghosts and gods, no one has ever seen them,
so one can draw them any way one likes.”
Dead lovers are easiest
Easier even to draw
Than gods—other ghosts
Lovers’ eyes sketching unique
Self-serving icons
Ghosts do not haunt us
We are the ones haunting them
With dead-end desires
I have decided
Your ghost is a happy one
Forever dancing
Amid those purple flowers
On that sunlit summer day
The days that remain
Be they happy sad long short
They’ll be without you
This clarity of death means
That this is not poetry
A poem requires
Something—not nothing
Some purple flowers
A dancing ghost—some such thing
To pin itself to—not death
No, your death cannot be poetry.
AGG20240302
Depth Charge: At the THROW Poetry Slam on March 2, 2024, I performed this poem, which actually a remix of four separate poems from Nothing Gained by Andrew Grimes Griffin , poems written over the course of a year after Alain Bonkela Isekatuli died.
To read it, just click on the link here Nothing Gained by Andrew Grimes Griffin. To download a pdf, right click on the link and select “Save link as…”
To read Songs about Sex, Death & Cicadas by Andrew Grimes Griffin, just click on the link. To download a pdf, right click on the link and select “Save link as…”
To read as close as the clouds by Andrew Grimes Griffin, just click on the link. To download a pdf, right click on the link and select “Save link as…”
To read the chapbook Happy Birthday Hanafuda by Andrew Grimes Griffinjust click on the link. To download a pdf, right click on the link and select “Save link as…”
tankawanka 