DOUGLAS K CURRIER

 

Hurry

 

Muerte lenta, la de esa mirada

cada día menos esbeltay menos atroz.

“Piel de granito” Irene Gruss

 

In time, death stops being a pin-up girl,

a runway model, a red-carpet movie star. 

The mystique wears thin, wears off,

and she becomes the awkward shopgirl,

the waitress with fallen arches,

the dental assistant with a run in her stocking,

your sixth-grade schoolteacher, that girl

you met in that bar that time – any of all

those women who have done for you all

of your life.  You wait for her to get ready,

impatient to go, to be there on time, now. 

She’s always late it seems, and you know

the look she gives you, the one that says,

What’s your hurry?

 

Lover

 

Find something to love, and let it kill you.

C. Bukowski

 

We love it all, don’t we? 

Even the hard stuff – loss,

failure, rejection, discord. 

We seem to seek it out,

making death the only oasis

we know.  Look at what we say

to avoid naming her – eternal

rest, final reward, at peace,

deceased, slipped away,

better place.  And the fun ones

– giving up the ghost, buying

the farm, kicking the bucket,

the dirt nap, the last hurrah. 

We are such children. 

We love all of it, and it kills us.

 

Death At The Prom

 

She’s your date; she accepted right away,

but her parents aren’t there when you pick her up,

there are no photos, she won’t wear the corsage,

and she starts drinking before dinner.

 

She looks good though.  You’ve never seen her

this beautiful.  She’s not the same girl she is in your

English class – glasses and hair in a knot on top of her head,

nose in a book most of the time – quiet, writes poetry.

 

She’s attractive and promises a good time – dance, drink, sex

in the back seat – as awkward as a rented tux and a ballgown can make that.  Later, it’s that hairpin curve, the truck, the old guardrails, the speed. It was all great – best last night of your life.

 

DOUGLAS K CURRIER

 

DOUGLAS K CURRIER received an MFA in writing from the University of Pittsburgh in 1984. He has published poems in various anthologies:  Onion River: Six Vermont Poets, Getting Old, Welcome to the Neighborhood, Poemas Zafados 2, y Proemio. He has also published in literary journals such as Café Review, Main Street Rag, Comstock Review, Anaquel Literario, Herederos del Kaos, Periódico Poético, Revista Rito and others in the United States and Latin America.  He is excited about the publication in Buenos Aires, Argentina of Vida prestada: Poemas con sabor de Tango in December of 2021 and the publication earlier this year of his collection, “Regreso.”  His chapbook in English, Señorita Death, (Main Street Rag Publishing Company) has appeared recently. He writes in English, his native language as well as in Spanish. He lives with his wife, Noemi M. Argañaráz, in Winooski, Vermont.