4th Annual Poems About Suicide Month

[just mercedes]

What to do at eleven


Rangi-the-sky and Papa-the-earth
smothered their six offspring, quarrelled.
After his brothers failed
Tane-the-life-giver pushed
his parents apart
saving Rangi’s life.

The brothers stood on Papa’s breast,
gazed at their empty world, then scurried
to fill it. 


broken and unbroken
the world is everything 
every part whole


On the quarter-deck, flexing his knees
as waves rolled below, Arion plucked
high and lively Orphian airs from his strings

then the world’s ace harpist
pitched himself
into the sea.