11- Poems about Death

Speaking of poetry..... I wrote a ton of it this semester. Here is another one:

Laying in the bath
she is
pink and puckered
like a strawberry rinsed under the faucet of the kitchen sink.
Supple, still, and silent
Her breasts her thighs her eyelids
speak for themselves
Half-submerged
as the final air-bubble-messenger-of-life
makes its way to disappear at the surface.

It is kind of upsetting since it is about a girl who has just drowned herself in the bathtub.... but I still like it a lot. Around the same time I wrote this one, it is also about death. You can tell from the last line when the speaker says "I have been saving up my oxygen."

You are my Space-Age dream
I want to experiment with the anti-gravity of your breath
Whisper into my skin so that I may float upward
I’ve been feeling heavy lately
My head is not even underwater
There is moldy dirt dripping out my ears
Soil moist in the corners of my mouth
and under my tongue
Scrub me clean with your sterile heartbeat
Probe me
I am following the fish with my eyes but when they turn they evaporate into the air
The red one is my favorite
When are we going to leave for Mars?
I’ve been saving up my oxygen.

I find this specific poem to be exceptionally sad because at first it seems that the speaker is going to be saved through the love from this other "Space-Age Dream" person, but then it turns out that it is too late. They are hallucinating and haven't been breathing.... they have been buried and laying dead in the earth for too long. The poem is someone's postmortem thoughts.

I think often poems must be controversial or disturbing in order to be effective. My creative writing teacher once told me that all good poetry is about death. I appreciate beautiful, spiritual, and straightforward poems just as much as upsetting ones. Either way, they are all beautiful, inspiring and full of truth.
Poetry always, always, speaks to my heart.