Endings – December 2, 2019 Weekly
As December begins, our thoughts stray to the endings of things – years, relationships, lives, the world as we know it. This week we feature grim near-futures, reflections from the twilight of life, and longing for the warm embraces we once enjoyed. Welcome to winter’s shadow.
"Washed Away" by Jeffrey Yamaguchi
“Isn’t the next stop the beach?”
The driver nods towards the front windshield, indicating the rain, and says, “Not today. Not any day, anymore, since about a year ago. Because of the… changes.”
“Take me there,” I say.
"Plane Takes Off from Chicago" by Thomas Murray
Going from the Gobi to the 405 is a full-time job.
My thoughts like winter snow drifts away, but summer comes for everyone.
If I die before I learn to love, will I ever live what the prophets speak?
Can money pay for all the days I lived awake but half asleep?
"fragmented no. 8" by DAH
even in the icy spring of March, your eyes
were the rays melting lingering snow: we lay
buried in the warm blood of naked bodies, like
two refugees in a new land, and the wind that
did not reach us, and the ice that could not
find us
"The Restless Tides of the Tagus" by Mário Santos
The river hides deep in its waters the last tears of the infants
who traveled along it, in the gloom of sleep.
Dark banks, drowned in the distance of time, hide a people
yearning for new tides but inhabited by fear.
"class: aves; kind: unknown" by Ahimaz Rajessh
its talons catch an orphaned child kneeling down
aiming bleeding stumps at vandalized idols.
the shrieks from its throat would seem to
intercept extraterrestrial communications.
"Hard Rule Enclosing" by Michael Igoe
It’s frolic, a panic;
the count of blood drops
in the heave of the gut.
It reaps a cryptic fortune
unleashed, in vast array,
makes a deal like mad
with uninvited guests.