The Dead: Poetry

By Tara Lynn Hawk

The Dead features thirty-seven original poems by Tara Lynn Hawk in her premiere chapbook.

Tara's second book,Rhetorical Wanderlust, is publishing late January 2018!

Born in northern California, Tara has traveled and lived in Europe, the United Kingdom and the western United States.
Her writing focuses on social and relationship issues such as isolation, loneliness, marginalization, fear, terror, love and death. She writes in a contemporary, free verse manner. Her poems have been featured on many poetry sites including Rasputin, Uut, Midnight Lane Gallery, Spelk, Idle Ink, OCCULUM, Social Justice Poetry, Spilling Cocoa, The Poet Community, Poems and Poetry and others.

Her varied influences include the Beat Poets including Lew Welch and Ginsberg, as well as Montaigne, Rumi, Baudelaire, Sexton, William Carlos Williams, Lucretius, Shakespeare, Elliot, Wolfe, Yeats, Heaney, Patti Smith, Blake, Panayotopoulos, and Akhmatova.

In addition to poetry, she writes flash fiction, humor, critique and film treatments.

The Dead is her first chapbook volume of poetry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tara Lynn Hawk
• Release date: Jul 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370642625

Tara Lynn Hawk

Born in northern California, Tara has traveled and lived in Europe, the United Kingdom and the western United States. Her writing focuses on social and relationship issues such as isolation, loneliness, marginalization, fear, terror, love and death. She writes in a contemporary, free verse manner. Her poems have been featured in print and on numerous poetry sites including OCCULUM, Midnight Lane Gallery, Uut, Idle Ink, The Cabinet of Heed, Spelk, Anti-Heroin Chic, Social Justice Poetry, Spilling Cocoa on Martin Amis, Wanton Fuckery, The Poet Community, Poems and Poetry and more. Her varied influences include the Beat Poets including Lew Welch and Ginsberg, as well as Montaigne, Rumi, Baudelaire, Sexton, William Carlos Williams, Lucretius, Shakespeare, Elliot, Wolfe, Yeats, Heaney, Patti Smith, Blake, Panayotopoulos, and Akhmatova. In addition to poetry, she writes flash fiction, humor, critique and film treatments.

Book preview

We bury our dead

upon the top of the hill

Surround the space with surplus maples and elms

and a weak fence of old, mismatched wood

And then forget about them

Till we come across some old photograph

or postcard received long ago

And then we remember:

Oh yes . . . they are up there

The fire of loss reignited

They rest amongst stone markers

Inundated with scattered dirt

and dead leaves

Grasses and dandelions grown tangled and wild

We can no longer discern

Who is who

and where

We bury our dead

Upon the top of the hill

And then forget

Your History

Silently ushered into the stark, blazing bright room

All dull stainless steel and white ceramic

Your life drained, almost translucent skin

Now purple bruised

Wet hair and lifeless mouth

Charcoal lips

So cold to my attempt at a touch

I desire to lift you up

Slap you out of your newfound icey comportment

My eyes emit an angry wet flood of fire

And yours, yours I no longer see

My aching remembrance of your pounding heart

Close to mine

We sat overlooking the lake valley

Our backs leaned against the giant granite

Now your history has ended

Mine stumbles aimlessly onward

Like some lost and blind orphan

But know

I will tell your story

I will look out over the waiting alpine landscape

On the boulder

I will write your name

With my blood

Ashes

Being a Requiem for the Victims of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Bombing

The ashes remember

What body they once