Fourteen Intimations of Mortality

As a curiosity, here is a ‘poem’ that was found recently while turning the pages of a poetry magazine:

 

Fourteen Intimations Of Mortality

 

Once I was in a room with two men
seeming dead way ahead of time.
Death arrives with her bone hammer,
the captive bolt, the gun’s held breath.

I’m dying, I’m dying –
stroke my cheek, my dad is dead,
dear Mother come softly across your white veil.
One by one we started dis-

– it isn’t obvious how all this works – life
// do you believe you have consciousness
Now it’s dawn, and the names are leaving, one by one,
and the horse is restless in the stable.

     I will roar the Truth:
     the story about the night.

 

© John Looker 2016

 

Each line of this sonnet was a line by a different poet published in The Poetry Review, quarterly journal of the Poetry Society here in Britain, summer 2016 edition, volume 106.2 – gathered strictly in the order in which the poets occurred. The issue was not dedicated to the subject of death, unless the editors (or I?) were subconsciously looking for the shadow of the scythe.