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31 Jan: "The Second Death" by LAURA KASISCHKE

The Second Death

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So like the slow moss encroaching, this
dark anxiety. In the bricks
by now
and all along
the shaded left side of the house.

And the statue, behind her knee. Her
ankle, in the cool
space between her breasts, spreading
in the earliest hours
of the morning.

Between her fingers.
Her parted lips.
That black-green
whispering.

2 comments:

  1. This reminds me of an idea I heard on the Radiolab podcast. It talked about dying in the physical sense but also in the memory sense: when the last time someone uses your name, you finally die for good, as in no one will ever know you existed. (Maybe I mentioned this before; it's such a cool thought) We might live much longer with the internet and technology holding our legacies and or information about us.

    This poem was driving me crazy because I didn't get it. Then I took a break and came back to it. I focused on the title and the second death is the destruction of the statue. What will be the next death?

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  2. I, too, have ran across that concept in a book written by a college student, Marina Keegan...I will relook for what angle she approached the topic with.
    When the last person uses your name or perhaps fades into death themselves...such an interesting idea. Is our purpose to be remembered? It certainly seems that one of our purposes may be to interact within others' memories, or why else would we be born with parents right off the bat?
    Yes, wow, we really have turned that concept on its head with technology....a natural evolution to what we believe is MORE, but perhaps is evolving into a lot LESS. Desensitized...

    The line break after "all along" is really neat here....All along- the side of the house, or death all along encroaches us the moment we are born. With statues, there is also a creation...but a death? Like the concept you mentioned, do inanimate objects need the human perspective to make them beautiful if humans were the ones that created them?

    I also love the colors or black-green...again symbols of death/life. Neat.

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