Josh Ritter - Folk Bloodbath, from his new album, “So Runs The World Away”
Louis said to Delia, “That’s the sad thing with life: there’s people always leavin’ just as other folks arrive.”
I came back from the funeral and crawled
around the apartment, crying hard,
searching for my wife’s hair.
For two months got them from the drain,
from the vacuum cleaner, under the refrigerator,
and off the clothes in the closet.
But after other Japanese women came,
there was no way to be sure which were
hers, and I stopped. A year later,
repotting Michiko’s avocado, I find
a long black hair tangled in the dirt.
Take from my palms, to soothe your heart,
a little honey, a little sun,
in obedience to Persephone’s bees.You can’t untie a boat that was never moored,
nor hear a shadow in its furs,
nor move through this life without fear.For us, all that’s left is kisses
tattered as the little bees
that die when they leave the hive.Deep in the transparent night they’re still humming,
at home in the dark wood on the mountain,
in the mint and lungwort and the past.But lay to your heart my rough gift,
this unlovely dry necklace of dead bees
that once made a sun out of honey.
sosafe: I see your Martins Ferry, Ohio and raise you Saint Judas (I was gonna post this anyway)
When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.
I delayed a response to this, because I was having trouble deciding on a poem. Let’s go with “Having Lost My Sons, I Confront the Wreckage of the Moon: Christmas, 1960.” This one is from his later work, after he stopped caring so strongly for meter and rhyme. It took me a little bit before I realized yours was in iambic pentameter.
After dark
Near the South Dakota border,
The moon is out hunting, everywhere,
Delivering fire,
And walking down hallways
Of a diamond.
Behind a tree,
It lights on the ruins
Of a white city
Frost, frost.
Where are they gone
Who lived there?
Bundled away under wings
And dark faces.
I am sick
Of it, and I go on
Living, alone, alone,
Past the charred silos, past the hidden graves
Of Chippewas and Norwegians.
This cold winter
Moon spills the inhuman fire
Of jewels
Into my hands.
Dead riches, dead hands, the moon
Darkens,
And I am lost in the beautiful white ruins
Of America.
Related: I forgot how much I loved James Wright.
