John Gallas Poetry

             





          














Death is a dialogue between
The Spirit and the Dust - Emily Dickinson






JULY & AUGUST 2008 =

POEMS OF D E A T H


Go to the SEARCH box and type in 'poems 1/2/3/4/5' (then click SEARCH) for DEATH poems :

1. DR JOHNSON SEES A MAN BURNED FOR HIS BELIEFS AT LICHFIELD (TYPE IN 'poems 1')

2. AT THE FUNERAL OF A NATIONALIST (TYPE IN 'poems 2')

3. THE SWEET DEATH - FELLINI (TYPE IN 'poems 3')

4. BARACOA SONNET (TYPE IN 'poems 4')

5. APUKHTIN AND THE EARWIG (TYPE IN 'poems 5')


Go to BUZZ for A VIEW OF A NEW BOOK and other NEWS ...


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CONTACT ME AT john.gallas@ntlworld.com

SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION ON NEW YEAR'S EVE



Show me the man that died properly last year
and I'll show you flying fish in Timbuktoo ;
tell me who sat with his pearly hands stuck in a bowl of water
rather than dishonour and a long white bed, like they used to do.


Goodbye twelve more months : this engineer
drove smack into a pylon the very last night
but did not catch fire - and we conscientiously wither
and hardly ever burn, snuff it with hardly any light.


Larkin's done it ; down the plughole, fear
sat like a sponge on his shoulders. And now the fashion
is to die King-Arthurish, aware of the calamity
of hotter hopes, all topped and tailed, in a cold passion.


Last night I got this cold obstruction, here,
so I went to bed and took the television,
and there on 'Midlands Today' this policeman just said Nope
when they asked him if someone could blow up just by making the decision.


But somewhere in town, determined to disappear,
someone had stopped and said, "And now I go" -
and gone : hauled up by angels as if, in the old way,
he were to be turned into a tree, or wind, or stars, or crow.


                       *


(published in 'Practical Anarchy' Carcanet 1989)