Something with a Pretty Name
(“The Diseases, and Casualties, this Year Being 1632”)
Their biggest cause of death is Chrisomes and Infants,
followed by Consumption, then Fever.
Our leading killer, heart disease, doesn’t even
make the list, though they lost ten citizens
to Cancer and Wolf–perhaps a metaphor and if so,
a fitting one for how that beast devours.
Lots of people die from Teeth,
which must mean their own, since
Bit With A Mad Dog is a separate entry.
Entertaining the illusion that we have some say
in how we go, other than Made Away Themselves,
I scan the choices like a menu. Several poxes–French,
swine, and small. Too late for me to be
Starved at Nurse, or killed in Childbed.
Changes in law have removed Executed and Prest to Death,
though lethal injection’s an option. Likewise, though King’s Evil’s
off the table, there are myriad ways government
policies can hasten one’s demise, even making
Dead in the Street and Starved a too-frequent occurrence.
Given my first choice, I’d take Aged.
If able to refine my expiration further, I might
go for Fever over the more poetic Grief.
Burnt, and Scalded is a definite no.
Kil’d By Several Accidents seems
overdone. Though it’s my favorite color,
I’d skip Purples, and Spotted Feaver as well.
If I’m really not allowed to live forever,
I’m torn between wanting to fall
into the unknown Suddenly, or be carried there
by the mysterious Planet, or something with
a pretty name like Rising Of The Lights.
Lost in Translation 9
What is freedom—Sun forever,
with butterflies and bees in every heart?
The waves break, and the light shines.
It is adorned with sunny and expensive gold.
Gold on a plate of gold.
My heart is silent in some places.
In the garden, I agree with my words.
Words and words reach the liver,
good words and a bitter ending.
With your voice and your distraction,
you made music more interesting than words.
Why did the song change?
Go out, and take your heart with you.
There are many reasons for silence.
(Roethke, McKay, Byron, Keats, Eliot, Dove, Gluck, Wilde, A. Lowell, Poe, Wordsworth, Hardy)
Alison Stone is the author of nine full-length collections, Informed (NYQ Books, 2024), To See What Rises (CW Books, 2023), Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020), Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, a book of collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, Barrow Street, Poet Lore, and many other journals and anthologies. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize, New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award, and The Lyric’s Lyric Poetry Prize. She was Writer in Residence at LitSpace St. Pete. She is also a painter and the creator of The Stone Tarot. A licensed psychotherapist, she has private practices in NYC and Nyack. alisonstone.info Youtube and TikTok – Alison Stone Poetry.