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Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Tara Lynn Hawk Up the River of Babylon With the Ghost of Modigliani Like a Pilfered Cadaver by the Felled Golden Spruce

On Viewing The Liffey At Midnight With The Ghost Of Modigliani 

If only he would push her in 
Filthy water always runs 
backwards 
And it’s going, it’s going  
it’s gone 
gone 
Oh yes he knew 
how to paint them 
All blue and black 


Discordant Adagio 

I am a bit overwhelmed with suicide bombers and harp seals  
clubbed and dog meat eating festivals and women stoned to  
death for falling in love with the “wrong” man with homeless  
veterans….or homeless anyone for that matter, kittens taped  
into a box and thrown on the side of the road my family thinks 
 me a nut with my 
hippie clothes and  
library of beat poets 
At least I am not that woman who locked her kids in the trunk  
of her car so she could go shopping 


The Not Bright Future (Currently On Hold) 

They will not admit us so we remain abandoned  
and unclaimed 
We’ll go ask the Church of Saint  
John Coltrane to take us to the river 
of Babylon once removed or some other river or stream we don’t care 
Campfires to dance around in a mummified haze of indifference 
Spines tingling, nail beds raw 
Yes we will fit in 
We have to  

Overworked Medical Examiner's Assistant 

We are always shorthanded here in this 
cold, dated building of tile and  
sterile stainless 
Made for function not visual harmony 
Daily I see the unnecessary cruelties inflicted by one being onto another 
Often for no reason at all 
than the a rumpled twenty  
The so-called “natural” deaths much fewer 
I  photograph mottled bruises and gaping wounds and pilfer  
the blood from the cadavers 
Not so meticulous tissue sectioning and the spending 
of much time moving my work around, in and out and  
around the fridge where some  
unwanted bones stay for years 
From the long window I see the park outside 
Birdsong permeates these walls as formaldehyde 
does my violent, intimate tasks 
Life goes on amongst all these mortal cells in  
slow decay  
Last fall they cut the tall golden spruce down 
Diseased, they said 
Dead trees felled, dead  
bodies incised 


Tara Lynn Hawk is a poet and writer whose work has appeared in Occulum, Uut, Spelk, Spilling Cocoa, Ant-Heroin Chic, Social Justice Poetry, etc.  Forthcoming In Idle Ink and Midnight Lane.  Her first chapbook, The Dead, is available on Smashwords.  "taralynnhawk.com