More Morbid Poetry - Aug 25 2025

 

More Morbid Poetry

Aug 25 2025

Earlier today, I read a poem about death

in a respected publication

that takes itself too seriously.

So I expected weeping widows

and pious regrets,

but instead, it was rollicking 

unsentimental

a pleasure to read.

The author and I are both 70,

and apparently, both grappling 

with death’s proximity.

An age

when death becomes personal.

An age

when you seriously contend

with the notion of extinguishment;

of the nothingness of sleep,

but a sleep

you don't wake up from   . . . ever

to apprehend 

your absence from the world.

An age

when the religion you rejected

starts looking better and better;

that is, if you’re sure enough of heaven

and not the nether place.

And an age 

when you try to make amends

deal with regrets

find meaning somewhere.

And when there you are, of all things

considering the merits

of burial

immolation

or eaten by wolves;

the high and mighty

reduced to meat

same as you.

  . . .  I think I prefer the grave;

returning to the earth

from whence I came.

Either way, it’s friends falling right and left.

And if it isn’t death, it’s dementia.

But still, I kind of like being old;

I’m settled

more centred

and know myself well,

or at least as well as I ever will.

Mostly, though, after reading her poem

I feel better about my own

morbid poetry;

the trope of death

I too often invoke

and have even apologized for.

No publication, of course,

not even self-.

Because who wants to read about death?

Not the young, who will live forever.

Not the elders, who have too little time left

to waste it moaning.

And not the centenarians 

who have already beaten the odds,

lost their old friends,

and are as ready as they’ll ever be

to end it all.

So don’t read this.

Or if you did, try forget the bad parts

and just remember 

how precious death makes life;

the great leveller

it’s bad form to talk about

in polite company,

but quite OK to poetize

just as long as you keep it light.

The poem I’m referring to is 70, by Patricia Smith. The publication is the New Yorker. 

I actually have felt very self-conscious in writing so often about death. So I thank her for giving me permission to do it again! Because if she can get away with it, then why can’t I?!

I quite like her breezy conversational style. Which influenced me while writing this, because I clearly channelled her voice, knowingly or not. My own style — or at least what I aim for, and am most comfortable with — is similar: a “talky” conversational tone, and with more everyday language than pretentious poetry-speak. So I have to thank her again: her influenced helped me produce a better version of me, even though it might strike you as an inauthentic impersonation of her. 

Here’s the link:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/09/01/70-patricia-smith-poem