Stephen Vincent
Elegy in Red
1.
Grieve in the morning.
Grieve in the afternoon.
Grieve. Grieve.
Your mother. Your father.
Your friend. Your lover. The brother,
sister, son and daughter:
Unto the fourth day, unto the fifth,
upon the waters. Upon the night. Upon the day.
Grieve.*
Stone upon the hill.
Stone upon the heart.
Name upon the stone.
Elm. Pine. Eucalyptus. Redwood.
Dark stone on the face.
Knife to the bone.
Grieving.
2.
Devour sun.
Devour moon.
Devour earth.
Wound the snake.
Wound the alphabet.
Wound the numeral.
Break. Break.
Go to the broken circle.*
The dead man.
The headless man.
The man an x in his mouth.
Roll him out.
Roll him out into the street.
Kick him into the forest.
Kick him far.*
Cry no tenderness.
Cry no fear.
Cry no hate.
Cry no love.
Cry no loss.
Cry no pain.
Cry no grief.
Cry no anger.
Cry no compassion.
Cry. Cry.
3.
Her laundry line is thin.
Will her clothes fall down?
Her laundry line is thin:
crimson jacket, blue brassiere,
unmatched black lace
underwear and slip,
the velvet, violet sheets,
the white cord about to break:
parrots, green throated
in the palm tree,
mocking birds in the ivy,
robins, red, round and plump
bouncing up and down
the trolley track:
high above the hot blue, green,
red and yellow graffiti,
her laundry line is thin.
Will her clothes fall down?*
Go away little
death Angel.
Get off my back door.
Isn’t your father lonely?
Your mother home alone?
Go away, go away
little death Angel.
Break bread with the ancestors,
with the long dead.
Break bread with the moss on the Oak,
Heaven leaves her morsels
on a stone*
Black sheet on the laundry line,
black blanket, too.
Black in the wind,
black under gray cloud,
black in front of the red robin running:
Met you as a stranger in a dark scarf.
gold cuffs, blue silk shirt,
curious cane,
the slender, dark shaft.
4.
In fear of mourning,
do not go.
Release the flowers on the deck,
the honeysuckle on the walk.
The Hawthorne flower, the cherry,
the lavender lupine, the green vine
breaking through
the wire fence.*
Song:
God says Hello
God says Goodbye
God takes your Hat
& sends you on your way.
5.
Rise Death
Rise
Show your face
Let us see your hand
Show us how you decide:
Why you take
When you take
What you take
Death, Death
Rise
Show us your bitter,
Show us your contented face.*
Who is this?
Who comes in a white bonnet,
a black shawl?
Who is this with a leather belt
around his head?
Who is this?
You are the friend of somebody
or nobody
You who walk the bridge
Script in hand
The curled paper rustling.*
I dreamed the other night
I let my father go.
We had one last, one last hug,
head to arm.
I said it’s alright, it’s alright dad,
You’ve done your share and more:
I’ve my feet under me, the children, too.
It’s my turn.
It’s time to let me go.*
Eeny Meany Mighty-Mo
Catch the Dealer
By the Toe:
Make him wink,
Make him blink
Eeny Meany Mighty
Trip to the left
Trip to the right
Fall into the furrow:
Blood, burrow,
Blood, burrow.*
They are here
To come to take you
They are here
To come to take you
No they’re not
No they’re not
I’ve got a rope to the tree
a rope to the tree
My father and me
My father and me.
6.
For whom the bells?
For whom the chills?
The basketball net turns ashen,
twists to slant barely:
the slow, gray wind.
The more things die
the more they remain the same:
Someone said that.
What do we do
In a period of multiple griefs:
Someone asked that.
On the desert floor
where the lake turns white
a grain of salt will split a rock,
a stone, then two or three,
and then a whole field.
Each stone divided by
multiple cracks:
each division a slender
or thick petal:
jade, gray and pink
stone flowers
everywhere.*
Grief in the heart
goes thick or thin.
In the middle of a small,
black, adjacent valley,
A field of fresh, half white,
cracked mud over which
small, black lava stones
proliferate, spiral and swirl,
an undecipherable calligraphy:
A story to tell.
A story to forget.
Over the next hill
in a small, fresh crater,
the inflamed-red rocks,
charred black on one side,
break into pieces
on the touch or throw.
7.
How to put the death raft out
How to put my brother’s body on the raft
How to sing the song, a farewell song
How to garland the raft with flowers
How to pick the man or woman to guide the tiller
How to watch the raft float by
How to know the stream flows dark and deep
How to know he will not come back
How to know when to sing
When to witness the trail
The tracks and wheels
The grooves in the earth
That brought him to
this river’s bank
How to know when to weep*
There’s a society in the City
in which grief is worn as a perpetual gown.
Heroically or not
the men and women die every day.
The society grapples in pain. They put hooks
in their chests, their stomachs, their genitals,
on each of their legs. Black weights are put
on every hook, two pounds each. They raise the drums.
The drums beat to a loud pitch. They dance. They dance
in exquisite pain. Blood burns through them. Crown to toe.
They praise God. They praise the heart. They praise the force.
They praise the pain. They praise the grief
and celebrate the life that survives among them.
*
I have a flame my mother brings.
I saw it in a dream the other night.
She was about to disappear.
It was her time.
A man with a candle with a wooden holder appeared.
I lit the candle.
Into a dark shadow she disappeared.
I have a flame my mother brings.
8.Sometimes, up on the wire
they hang your sweater
up-side-down: arms crumpled,
the tail doubled-up
back over the top
while the turtleneck –
it’s collar, blind and stiff –
drops straight
down:
Still, or swung back and forth, in the wind.
Sometimes days, or months,
can go like that. Some strange God
turns you over to dump the insides out:
there is no elegance in falling,
full, or part way, all love is lost:
if we are lucky, or persistent,
we do come back:
the sweater around our torso,
walk the winter months,
flame in the belly
song in the mouth.