J.D. DeHart- Three Poems

Mortality Rates

 

I am sure somewhere there is a little man,

hard hat on, chalk in the hand

making computations

(this kind of chalk we used in school that spilled

copious amounts of white powder on us,

a sign of our ancient education, the kind of chalk

our teachers were adept at using, writing in their

wise cursive with brightly colored dresses on)

each scrawl mark tracing the path of an uncle

or a cousin, someone whom I have never met

connected to me in the universe, ready to be dispatched

“passing,” as they say, onto some “happy hunting ground”

Oh, the many idioms we invent for death.

 

Distillation

 

There was a pure version of me, unfiltered

but I was boiled slowly by words

refined by a few cross-ways looks

beaten and pelted into place by sneers

We all used to be actors, actresses, true

Life Size Performers, but everyone tied us up,

dragged us back down to earth

like captured gods or fallen angels

We found our faces dirtied up, our teeth

a little chipped – one more step to empty

gaping mouths, so that our song has ended,

we barely sing, except in the car

when no one is watching us too closely.

 

The Statue’s Name is Henry

 

When I was small, I loved Edgar Allan Poe

and what I thought was a bust of Abe Lincoln.

Turns out, it was a cologne bottle but back then

I imagined it was a grand piece of history.

Once when I gathered a great fever, I visited

my aunt’s house to cool down

(my house had no air conditioning)

When I left, she gave the “bust” to me as a gift

which I promptly named Henry, ignoring

the truth on purpose, playing a kind of game,

then finding that the acquisition

was the worst part, throwing the latest object

into a pile of other pieces, then moving on

to obsess over a new item of little significance.