Tj Hoffman Duffy- A Poem

Death by Omission

 

As I stand next to these monsters in life

I am reminded of the time I shot up

embalming fluid

to get a head start on death

 

I would look to the east

then south picking the verbal ticks

out of my soul’s pocket

I always was looking for a decent excuse to secede life

to release my relationship with grief

 

I thought that I was nourished enough

for the future, but I ran out of fertilizer

I wonder if I can ever stop building my life from

the pain of the past

 

 

Tj is a resident of Tucson where he is a political/AIDS activist. Tj won the Hearst Poetry Prize in 2010.He has been recently published in Spectrum: The Gift, La Bloga-Chicana, Poets Against SB 1070, Persona, University of Arizona Magazine of Art and Literature- Spring 2009. Tj has forth coming poems in “A Field and Literary Guide to the Sonoran Desert” and “HIV Here and Now.”  Tj spends his spare time volunteering for the Tucson Festival of Books, Tucson Folk Festival, Tucson Jazz Festival and the Tucson Poetry Festival.