My Death Space Dot Com

Often I bookmark links or save things that seem they'll have some interesting content to offer. This one sat open in an internet tab for about a week, but I'm so glad I finally read it and didn't just close it.

"My Death Space Dot Com" by Bruce Bond

Now that obituaries come online
with coroner reports and full disclosure,
imagine the ways to betray a man
come out of hiding to die. Ask the bloggers
who weigh in on my friend’s bad habit,
who make of it their own drug strung out
across a mirror, so when they pay tribute
to their power, how they had their doubts
about his talent, his flu, I think how lucky
I was to receive the kindness of the weak.
My death space, as they call it, as if it’s me
who died. A life, we know, is complex.
But death is simple. A place to talk shit,
to license grief, or barring that, to kill it.

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This one I understand less. But I like many of its lines.

"Handy Guide" by Dean Young

Avoid adjectives of scale.
Dandelion broth instead of duck soup.
Don’t even think you’ve seen a meadow, ever.
The minor adjustments in our equations
still indicate the universe is insane,
when it laughs a silk dress comes out its mouth
but we never put it on. Put it on.
Cry often and while asleep.
If it’s raw, forge it in fire.
That’s not a mountain, that’s crumble.
If it’s fire, swallow.
The heart of a scarecrow isn’t geometrical.
That’s not a diamond, it’s salt.
That’s not the sky but it’s not your fault.
My dragon may be your neurotoxin.
Your electrocardiogram may be my fortune cookie.
Once an angel has made an annunciation,
it’s impossible to tell him he has the wrong address.
Moonlight has its own befuddlements.
The rest of us can wear the wolf mask if we want
or look like reflections wandered off.
Eventually armor, eventually sunk.
You wanted love and expected what?
A parachute? Morphine? A gold sticker star?
The moment you were born—
you have to trust others because you weren’t there.
Ditto death.
The strongest gift I was ever given
was made of twigs.
It didn’t matter which way it broke.