Kampa is a brillliant poet I only recently discovered. I do not share his religious views, but he expresses them with such beauty, grace, and wit, that he's quickly become a favorite to me. I strongly recommend his book, Cracks in The Invisible, especially to my Christian friends.
The rows of gravestones jut
Up from the grass like graying teeth,
A half-jaw smile in no sense undercut
By the bodies underneath
Lost in the many poses of repose
By which death mocks
Their hold on life. Behold the remnants: rose,
Smutched shovel, and a lately-buried box.
Who am I kidding? Here
I am, engrossed by all the gory
Particulars, proclaiming them austere
But fierce memento mori,
When really all these forceful lamentations
Seem a bit forced.
Woe to the bones and their disintegrations,
Woe to the veins through which warm blood once coursed,
Woe to the woeful skin,
Woe to the whole bewoed shebang!
Honestly. How did we get taken in
By letting it all hang
Out, as if authenticity depended
On histrionics,
As if a graveyard couldn’t be transcended
With a few blunts or a few gin and tonics?
Besides, as mentioned, I’m
Not at the grave of Dylan Thomas,
And I don’t care about childhood, grief, time,
Rage, or excessive commas.
I hate prophetic poets; they are wrong.
They ought to call
A spade a spade, stop stringing us along.
Death does, indeed, have dominion over all.
(from)
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