#npm15: Cascando by Samuel Beckett

National Poetry Month is here! Whoo hoo!!! As promised, I intend to post a poem every day this month, including the ones you suggested. Thanks so much to all of you who sent poems my way.

I'm going to start the celebration with a long-time favorite. Some poems leave a mark. I first read Cascando by Samuel Beckett when I was in college. Not long after, my grandmother died. Maybe that's why the phrase, "there is a last even of last times" stayed with me. There is a last hug, a last look, a last smile -- and we rarely know when the last of last times will be.

Another plus for this poem? For a writer, it's hard to find a line or word more accurate and descriptive than wordshed.

Cascando

     1
why not merely the despaired of
occasion of
wordshed

is it not better abort than be barren

the hours after you are gone are so leaden
they will always start dragging too soon
the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want
bringing up the bones the old loves
sockets filled once with eyes like yours
all always is it better too soon than never
the black want splashing their faces
saying again nine days never floated the loved
nor nine months
nor nine lives

     2
saying again
if you do not teach me I shall not learn
saying again there is a last
even of last times
last times of begging
last times of loving
of knowing not knowing pretending
a last even of last times of saying
if you do not love me I shall not be loved
if I do not love you I shall not love

the churn of stale words in the heart again
love love love thud of the old plunger
pestling the unalterable
whey of words
terrified again
of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you
of knowing not knowing pretending
pretending
I and all the others that will love you
if they love you

     3
unless they love you