‘My Sister’ (A Poem)

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Alexander Frost, alone, Anchor, artist, books, coping, countryside, death, depression, desperation, development, eulogy, faith, fall, family, fate, feelings, fine art, heartache, heartbreak, interpersonal, isolation, life, literature, loneliness, loss, Love, Love Anchor, memory, model, Music, musician, Norway, poem, poet, poetry, relationships, release, sad, sadness, spiritual, spring, suicide, time, unspoken, volume

(‘Play that old allegro in E-major’
‘The one rendered incomplete by his passing,
The passing of insouciant youthfulness
Into the embittered arms of old age?’
‘The one he was writing as he went insane’)

The valley echoes with lamentation
Daffodils sway with windswept heavy heads
In the dying light of this days decline
Swift hoofs strike the tired earth like anvils
The dust rises skywards in amber plumes
As the dolorous shades, the blues and greys,
Dissipate in the cold light of evening
So that the fog hanging amongst the reeds
Is reduced to a frail lingering dew
Retaining the prints, the ghosts of your tread
Held in such suspended animation
Pale memories to outlast the monarchs

My sister shot herself three years ago
But I still cannot begrudge her the act
For I know what it’s like to be alone
I guess I was just sad to let her go
To recognize all the joy we will miss
The summers at the lake house in Norway
Riding bicycles in the countryside
Cutting paths through the freshly fallen leaves
When the weather turns, bundling up inside
With our favorite books by firelight
Gazing out into the star-riddled sky
We whisper our plans for the future and
Each season go berry-picking in Maine
As the afternoon spreads out before us

From the volume ‘And Persephone Turned To Him Weeping’ 

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‘How Will The Poets Sing of Suicide? (Eulogy)’

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Alexander Frost, allusions, alone, art, artist, artistry, author, cancer, composition, creation, creative, death, depression, desperation, disease, end, eulogy, fiction, figures, form, Goodnight Lover, heal, heartbreak, historical, history, isolation, life, literature, loneliness, loss, Love, Love Anchor, meaning, meter, methods, mortality, Music, musician, non-fiction, Norway, ottava rima, poem, poet, poetic, poetry, references, relationships, sex, suicide, terza rima, time, words, worry, writing

Gilman chose chloroform over cancer

She picked the etherized rag over all

Tumbling into darkness like a dancer

 

An old ranch hand missing youths mystery

Hemingway took Chekov’s gun from the wall

And blasted himself into history

 

Rothko answered the Primitivists call

Slashing up his wrists in a rush of red

Fagan could fly, but in Rome chose to fall

 

Woolf stuffed the pockets of her overcoat

Worn atop her favorite dressing gown

With stones and drowned, fearing she’d missed the boat

 

Plath put out breakfast in old London town

Then sealed herself off with the gas left on

Sexton chose her car with the garage door down

 

Gros sank in the Seine like a yearling fawn

In like a lion, fished out like a sheep

How does one mistake Baron’s ease for brawn?

 

Poor Jeanne, despondent enough for two

Dove three stories into Stygian sleep

Days from the date her second child was due

 

While watching industry and commerce creep

Christopher Wood chose rustic scenes to paint

By train he gave his passage to the deep

 

Tchaikovsky toasted with cholera-taint

Amidst a Petersburg epidemic

The spectre of the failed sixth, his name saint

 

A man may break his bones with stone or stick

But van Gogh revolved around the quick sigh

Of stars burning to singe the vigils wick

 

Like Mayakovsky he died by the gun

The modern end to the everlasting

When the sun reveals what the moon has done

The bane of the clipper ships half-masting

As the daylight plays out how the war was won

Quicker than the pole rigged up for casting

Removed of worm so nimbly there is naught

Left with mind enough or tongue to be taught