Category: Death

stop praying for what you want

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Death, exposition, Life, Life and Death, limineen, Poem, poetryLeave a comment

the birds’ choir
is a mockery outside my window, eight different species on the sill — eight — for gods’ sake!


these days when the
Sun’s arc is long
and the soil is warming for the season — and permanently

i am in my bed with lead bones
annoyed that i woke up again, and guilty with an ungratefulness about it


my steady lament is sung out loud — but still unheard
i counted my mistakes like sheep, to sleep again
they didn’t wander away though
they stay close to their shepherd, always


they say Death comes in threes and that’s true
but it still hasn’t chosen me
instead, conscripting two complacent men, known to me, thirty-six, fifty three, in one week’s time — why?
while i’m out here volunteering for the cause
it cruelly searches elsewhere to complete their trio


of course i’m still fucking here!
the gods won’t give you what you pray for!

courage, love, fidelity, life, death

they’re full of motherfuckery
they know exactly what i — and what you, want most — of all

so they sent these birds here to taunt me


so they keep me here to taunt you

Continue reading “stop praying for what you want” →

Wolf Lake

On By ©️K.T. 2025In childhood, Death, exposition, Father, Funerary, Poem, poetryLeave a comment

for

+Willie Mack Riche+

a prologue included for father’s day:

the man who bought my kindergarten clothes when i was four years old and paid my Lutheran school monthly tuition for eight years; the man who had the rusty 1972 VW Bug, gifted to me by my boyfriend for high school graduation restored over the summer before my freshman year of college; the man who adored both my son aka “monster” and “bam-bam”, and my first dog, Digby aka “hound”; the man who endured both the devastating loss of custody of and subsequent parental abduction of — and then, the tragic death of his only biological child, a son.

the man who never got the chance to properly retire and healthfully and happily collect his 30-year, hard-earned Teamster’s union pension — and just go fishing all day because he became acutely ill with undiagnosed kidney failure, and spent the last years of his life on thrice-weekly, hours-long dialysis treatment — and his last six months on Earth dying from a rare, aggressive and metastatic cancer.

may his spirit know peace eternally.

Willie Mack
gingerly cradling his namesake Mack
on the first full day of the baby’s life,
and who we brought home on
Father’s Day, 1994


“This used to be my playground.”


and, our proxy for church on spring, summer and fall sabbaths.


These were the halcyon days.


Load up the International Harvester TravelAll with wooden doors and quarter panels – it has two gas tanks, you know.
Bought it used, but pristine
on payments – from the showroom on Logan Boulevard and Elston Avenue with zero credit history and all the usury


Have mercy.


Follow me, and I will make you fishers of fish.


He will bait your hook on the bamboo pole he bought you.
Later, you will insist on the “Pocket Fisherman” – as seen on TV.

Continue reading “Wolf Lake” →
Featured

With a tail as big as a kite. With a tail as big as a kite.

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Animals, Beauty, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Death, Funerary, Life and Death, Poem, poeme, poetry, spirit, spirits, Survival, Uncategorized, WinterLeave a comment

She strained her eyes
what is that dark lump
in the road
traveling into my throat

Out she went
sighting the black beauty
from fifty paces
nearer, the bright blood
pooling beneath ki’s face

Did he even try to brake
or swerve?
“no”, the tracks and trees say

Maybe the driver didn’t see
the pitch black, moving body
against the snowy white, otherwise red dirt road?

Maybe ki darted out,
in front of the royal blue truck
a truck fit for a rural king
[doubt of the beneficent on Christmas]

machines
everywhere
machines

carssawsgunsplowsshipsplanesmillstractorsthrowersdozerstruckscombines
boatsturbinesrigsdredgerstrainsbargesroadsrailharborspipeshousesbridges
wellshighwayssewersstructuresquarriesreactorspowerlinesstreetslotsculde
sacsfencessatelliteslockscelltowerssignsculvertswallsdockslandfillsdams

she gently pincers the end of ki’s gorgeous black tail
gingerly pulling kin off the road
redundantly committing ki’s spirit
to the universe, aloud
with apologies for humankind, silently

purposefully committing kin’s body
to a safer spot
for mourning
and carrion feast

Ki’s body was unexpectedly heavy
full of walnuts and seeds
fat and strong for a long winter ahead
so alive just minutes ago, I saw out the window

I’m sorry
I’m sorry
for me
for my kind
for our machines
for our structures
for our carelessness
for our selfishness
for all this,
engineered, manufactured, destroyed

the falling snow christens quick

she wanted to go inside
and sob
selfishly,
because the possibility
of an aberrantly painless holyday
ceased with the dead black squirrel Continue reading “With a tail as big as a kite. With a tail as big as a kite.” →

Open

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Adam and Eve, baptism, baptize, Death, Eve, Exegesis, Feminine, Femmes, Gnosis, Her, Mother, Narrative, Poem, poeme, poetry, Rebirth, Sacred Feminine, Shes, Spiritive, spirits, Spirrative, Uncategorized, water, WomenfolkLeave a comment

I walk bare

out in the open

the Sun, Moon, Rain, Wind, Clouds, Sky and Stars
kiss me at all hours

did you see me open up
this Autumn?

after a Summer spent wailing,
wet, yet fruitless
after a Spring spent wading into lies instead of soft blossoms and new grass
Winter approaches, maybe the frost will kill this disease,
for good

I bathe

nearly naked in sunshine, cold rainstorms, in wetland pools and moonlight

unapologetically

|out in the open|

unabashedly

baptising
my face,
hair,
and eyes,
my breasts
vulva
and legs,
my lips,
throat,
spine,
and my wild heart

ceremonially, first
with wine, like Magdalene, anointing and anointed,
in the name of the Mother, Sun and holy ghosts

|a cabernet henna|

then, with rainwater from the willow’s edge, like Ophelia,
lying in the woodland and meadow, flooded
to cleanse or drown [to live, or not to live]
in the name of the Moon

|I ponder the stone cistern laden with glacial deposits and ruminant bones|

the woodland is abundant with new mushroom, new overnight growth

the hint of ancient circles supplants my judgment with instinct
and overrides decorum with new delights

|and old delights, revisited |

an aged grapevine is rooted deep, climbing, trailing, snaking
hidden in plain sight, everywhere
and I’ve intuited It as Ol’ Scratch,
I take a hatchet to quell Its influence, here

You,
Your windows are not true eyes
Your lamps are not enlightenment

So, bless the dark

of the night

of the country night sky

And the Moonset

of my moon

it’s been decades,
but
this place wants to birth or impregnate me,

and I want that too
i want it to

|I come here and open up|

 

 

Wanderten Mutter

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Death, Estrangement, Frau, Funerary, Hospice, Immigrant, Immigrants, Life and Death, Mother, Mutter, Parents, Stoic, Terminal Illness, Transistion, William BlakeLeave a comment
“Lief heim ins Seitelein.” Unitätsarchiv, R.20.E.36.12. Archiv der Brüder-unität, Herrnhut. http://bq.blakearchive.org/40.3.schuchard “Lief heim ins Seitelein.” Unitätsarchiv, R.20.E.36.12. Archiv der Brüder-unität, Herrnhut.
http://bq.blakearchive.org/40.3.schuchard

My life seems long, I know
My body’s mostly worn
Inside, she’s just begun to live, again
A girl gone long ago

There are bottled laughs to voice aloud
New smiles to wear with these old shoes
Time to know the world, and you, and you, and you …
between these walls of peeling, muted hues

Once Herr died
My Self was ready to return
My cadence so shy and slow,
Lamenting the awkward waste of precious years

I find my voice as I write the past,
But in my book, the Tomorrow has no page
Forever winter approaches from within
These years and years upright on hard chairs

Unreal, unseen, unheard, untouched
by the world, by the womb, it may concern, Whom
I speak through and then beyond this pain of bone and life
Before the cold within brings silence of the tomb

You see, to me, my presence still feels warm, and blush
somehow, even new
My life stretched out behind me, no steps ahead
And I forestall Death’s cue, awaiting mere glimpse of you

If you can imagine, child
I love, unsaid,
I feel as just alive, as real, as you.

Gnostic Gospel of Transition

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Death, dying, Existence, Father, Gnosis, Gnostic, gospel, Home, Hospice, Life and Death, liminal, liminality, Parents, Pleroma, Poem, poetry, Terminal Illness, threshold, transitionLeave a comment

All light

That’s what you are

That’s what you always were

But, you’ve got to move on, now

Ready to go home, true.

They’re waiting for you.

All light,

I promise; it’s alright

Continue reading “Gnostic Gospel of Transition” →