Alas for Human Dignity

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Alas for human dignity:
it may be strong,
and try with all its might,
but if it's ever broken,
it loses all its light.

© Julianne Carlile

1970

Dignity

Image by rcameraw via Flickr

I was happy until today
my father died in a coma the way
he did...but no longer.
He went without fanfare of any kind,
just like a clock winding down
or a leaf drying up and blowing away.
It seems so insulting,
so lacking in dignity,
after suffering such mortal pain,
to go like water, emptying,
running, down a drain.

© Julianne Carlile

2010

Not From Below

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Memory is a strange thing: It fills the mind
with things that couldn't be,
and yet it seems so real that only heaven
wishes for me.

It's a very hard thing to think or believe;
it's like a TV show,
remembering visits from an angel friend
(not from below).

© Julianne Carlile

2010

We'd Coldly Haunt

Eclipse of the Sun by Saturn (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I do not want the world to end;
that's all I want.
If there are problems, would you mend?
It's scary to look at earth's end.
The universe would have to flaunt
a decent place for us to go,
and many people do not want
to find themselves in Saturn's flow--
we'd coldly haunt.

© Julianne Carlile

2010

I Live On a Well-Traveled Road

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I live where I'm displayed along
a road where many go.
The traffic's loud as a rock song--
my windows see the show.

I hate to go in front of it,
the building where I live.
The ambiance out there is lit
with massive hurt to give.

All feeling drains out of my heart
when I am safe inside,
and I feel exposed and apart
like the sand at low tide.

© Julianne Carlile

2010

A Poem About How Much I Like Emily Dickinson's

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I wanted to write a poem as light as
her one from yesterday (IX).
It's good for the heart not to have to look
at troubles every day.

I want to have the same effect as she:
to not affect the spirit,
But leave it at the end of the day
as if you'd never read it.

It's pleasing the way she uses nature
to describe human feelings;
she creates a pretty picture that
I would love to go in.

Her poem is so sweet I hope it was read.
I'm writing against the clock.
On me it had the effect she'd want:
there are riches inside to unlock.

© Julianne Carlile

2010

Just Food Waiting

I will not swim in the ocean.
I don't know how they do.
And the surfers who love it to death,
I think they are crazy too.

I've seen tapes on TV--too bad:
(great whites are there)
and people swimming nearby happily stupid--
no cares!

How to they do it these brave, brave people,
to ignore the fact that they are
just food waiting to be eaten by:
(forget it, I'm in my car).

© Julianne Carlile


2010

There Was An Old Lady Named Sadie

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There was an old lady named Sadie,
who rode on a mule down to Hades,
and when she got there,
she said with a glare,
"Now where is my god damned Mercedes?"

© Julianne Carlile

2010

You Did Not Remember

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You did not remember that once
you stared so my head almost exploded
from the intensity, from the meaning--
your look a gun cocked and fully loaded.

I remembered, but since I was the only one,
it's not a memory I fondly kept:
I threw it out in the back forty where
the coyote and deer and foxes wept.

© Julianne Carlile

2010

The Pig Fetus

I don't think I've ever seen anything so sad
as a pig fetus,
floating in formaldehyde,
eyes tightly shut to the possibilities:
the desertion by the parents--
never pretty;
the children's names;
the sibilant siblings;
the sometime friends;
the always lovers;
the pressures of pig politics;
the pursuit of pleasure
and the avoidance of pain--
it was as if God had decided
even this was too good for him.

© Julianne Carlile

1994

The One

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He was all I ever wanted,
through years of looking sad;
I looked and looked to find the one
who'd fit the dreams I had.

I thought that I had found him,
though it's not his to know,
that after seeing all he had
there was more warmth in snow.

© Julianne Carlile

2010