Fatalphabet

     Schubert's
"Death and the Maiden": Franz, long dead and gone, 
     spots the
Angel of Death dead ahead. (Franz ain’t wrong.) 
     John Donne's
"Death Be Not Proud" be no deadbeat dad's pick.
     Yet those
brain-dead dead-baby jokes do leave me sick.

     In Death
Comes for the Archbishop, Cather's dead center. 
     Still, 
death camps are creepy. If sent, just don’t enter. 
     George's*
Dawn of the Dead's been done damn near to death – 
     while the
Dance -- death-defying -- of Death takes one's breath.

     * George A. Romero

     Dick
DeadEye’s not Schwenk's* DeadEye Dick. He’s from Vonn.**   
     Neither
beats Kids Dead End.*** (Rowling’s**** Death Eaters…? Yawn.)

     * W.(illiam) S.(chwenk) Gilbert 
     ** Kurt Vonnegut  
     ***  I.e., proved more successful than Sidney Kingsley's Dead End Kids. 
       **** J. K. Rowling 

     Flocks of
fellows named 'Phil'; beaucoup belles baptized 'Beth.' 
     Down the
years, in their oodles, they’ve faked their own death. 
     (Sev'ral
feign’d death from drowning; some OD'd on meth.) 

     Of the 
great Grateful Dead's grim death grips and death grimaces,
     which are
dead giveaways…? Jerry! Let him assess!

     It’s
me, in a dead heat (with Owsley,* of course) 
     for the
title "Miss Dead-" (not to beat a dead horse) 
     "-head, Death
Valley" is fated to play a dead hand. 
     (First prize…?
Death's-head tiaras -- plus gigs with the band.

     * Owsley Stanley

     Papa's* 
Death In the Afternoon's dead in the water: 
     Ernest 
bugg’d poor Baroja, opining he** oughter 
     have 
landed that Lit Prize*** instead of ol' Ern. 
     Then when
Pio agreed…? Well, the shite hit the fern. 
     Singing 
"do, dare dedi...," take care not to "give" 
     ('til you're
dead sure your giftee has not long to live).

     * Ernest “Papa” Hemingway  
     ** Pio Baroja y Nessi  
     *** The '54 Nobel for Literature

     As with
everything 'death,' being snatch’d from its jaws
     tends to 
sharpen one's focus and give one due pause.
     A
kiss of death puckers. A death knell strikes five. 
     In the
end, more dead Kennedys. (Who's left alive…?)

     Dead
Letter Departments, as deadlines draw near, 
     find them-
selves in a heat for "Dead Beat of the Year" 
     with The
One Deadly Sin Club. Such deadlocks can’t last. 
     Even
should they, the winner would finish dead last. 

     In this
death match -- a death march with twelve dead men walking – 
     as
each is already dead meat, goons stand gawking. 
     (The
kind of crude contest such ghouls prefer best 
     is when
all dance upon a -- Yo! Ho! -- dead man's chest.)

     "Let's
schlep to the shtetl," announced Great Aunt Gretel. 
     "We'll
show folks our mettle: 'tis there we shall settle. 
     Sol,
fill up that kettle. I'll brew some dead nettle. 
     (Do
bees love its petal…? By Yahweh, you bet(tle)!)

Dead on arrival (or should be, I say) 
     is de-
dovshchina. It’s the old Soviet way
     elders
disciplin’d kids wearing milit’ry dress.
     (It is
still dead of winter in Russia, I guess.)

(More fatalities to come: a work in progress)


poets    presidents    pool    pan

quiet    queen

reckoning    to rights    ringer

Sea scrolls     space    silence

Toenail tree    to rights

Unicorn     deaducation

Death Valley

Weight    wrong

FedEX    DeadX

Deddy Mizwar

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