Day 8.. poems from the wikipedia entry of the 8th April


13 deaths of 8th April

944 – Wang Yanxi, Chinese emperor

Far too many brothers
and a wife he could not refuse.
At night,  he felt alone and vast, an Empire

967 – Mu'izz al-Dawla, Buyid emir

On the last day, as he drowned,
he was aware that he was watched
by the forgotten Ibis God


1492 – Lorenzo de' Medici, Italian nobleman

Beetlesque in his red porphyry shell,
turned upside down by omens. See the lightning,
ghosts, the fighting of the Palace lions

1608 - Magdalen_Dacre , noblewoman

How, by means of keeping quiet and mum,
of wearing linen coarse beneath the velvet,
the lady's maid can keep her head


1861 – Elisha Otis, inventor of the elevator

Invention is the cable
keeping us from falling.
Still we travel from the penthouse to the basement


1950 – Vaslav Nijinsky, dancer and choreographer

Inevitable and graceless gravity,
death of a dancer in Virginia Water. 
Oh terrible,outrageous 20th century

1962 – Juan Belmonte, toreador

On his best horse in the sun,
glorious ridiculous in his traje de luces.
Shadow of the great bull caught him on its horns.

1973 – Pablo Picasso, artist 

The gray period- all those wives
bled dry, and husked upon the canvas- 
monstro, abuelo, life consumed by art

1997 – Laura Nyro, singer songwriter

Music of ashes scattered with her mother
by the maple tree. For myself, I join the poem
for the first time- clouds of hair, those self songs

2010 – Malcolm McLaren, promoter, artist

Live fast die oldish. What was his line about
spectacular failure? Stil the splash of punk, 
shock of red paint on grey seventies

2013 – Annette Funicello, actress, dancer

Disneyland as afterlife with plastic palms.
On the silicon beach , she dances, bikini atolled:
death star of the first gen mouseketeers


Still too soon for distance

2021

Too many, too many causes,
too many memories, too vague , too absolutely personal- 
yet wikipedia does not list the names

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