Susan M. Schultz : Being in Kind, im Matthew Henriksen

 

 

 

 

Accidental wit-
ness  you turn the tv on
Woman sobs in Kyiv 

Accident is still
intent  I watch as she leans
Over a bloody 

Sheet  world goes on not
Like Brueghel but worse  no one
Was flying  they just 

Died  Not quantity
But quality of life wrote
Marcus Aurelius 

Matters  after-lives
Of conversation   I was
Happy he’d found love 

Though I only knew
Him on Facebook, once chatted
At American 

Cannery  Brooklyn
This too is real  this friendship
Over internet 

(Not Antoinette no)
See my cousin's goodness through
Smudge, portrait taken 

To find the distance
In her presence on my screen
So like my father

It’s all about kind-
ness Matt says  “kindness kindness
Kindness”  turns to leave 

Stage  then exits
Two days ago   his wife posts
At Zelenskyy’s age 

44  Aaron’s
Number  like a brother or
The guy who leaps out 

Of a cake in Cubs’
Uniform in Kyiv   laughter
Prophetic balm or 

Pathetic in both
Senses  sad and with feeling
Can’t make a story 

Out of pain  can’t make
Pain for sake of story  so
You invent new forms 

Call them recovery
Sobriety   a daughter’s
Love to bind you to 

That spot on our stage
You leave again  as we note
Our shocked ironies 

“This may be the last
Time you see me alive,” he
Said. “Drop name into 

Empty bucket, when
I’m gone, I will hear it in
The ringing of a bell.”

 

 

Note: the end of the last quotation is from Matt Hendriksen’s “Another Coda,” published in Brooklyn Rail, March 2019. The first part is from Zelenskyy. Other material from Matt's Ted Talk in Fayetteville, several years ago, as well as memories that only now seem linked to me.

 

 

 

 

Susan M. Schultz was founding editor of Tinfish Press. Her books include I Want to Write an Honest Sentence (2019) and the forthcoming Meditations 2019-20 from Talisman.

Lea Graham : Obituarize : For Matt Henriksen, in memoriam

 
Obituarize, (v.) To write an obituary notice of or for (a person); to make the subject of an obituary

           I suppose that / is where religion begins / The house we must enter / when we
           close the final door
                                         --from Matt Henriksen’s “Kaveh’s Window”

          For Matt Henriksen, in memoriam

 

Every obituary I ever wrote
was revised by a non-writer. Passed away
turned resting in the arms of Jesus; bound
for Beulah land subbed in for died.

She loved to sing Ella Fitzgerald tunes
became her smile could light up any
room; master of Texas BBQ
changed to a joke always on his lips.

I learn today that there are maps
for these phrases, that where we live
is particular to euphemisms
for our deaths: the east coast departs

and the west coast succumbs. In Appalachia,
the deceased went home, while in Utah
they slipped away. I want to think of you
there within your beloved, broke-ass

apartment somewhere above and surrounded
by the tracks, down the street from George’s
Majestic Lounge, reading that devoted
Schuyler, listening to Van “the man,”

there in grief and profound gratitude at
the Dickson Street Bookshop when I stop through
or peacefully chucking rocks with your kids
in Wilson Park, writing my hometown

into a small kingdom of poetry
in lieu of that darkness, departing
towards creation, a night that will never
end—whippoorwill song, a celebration

for ecstasy, memorializing
a word to begin and make flesh
the people we meet, a beautiful shore,
O—this must be what they call glory

 

 

 

 

Lea Graham is the author of two poetry collections, From the Hotel Vernon (Salmon Press, 2019) and Hough & Helix & Where & Here & You, You, You (No Tell Books, 2011); a fine press book, Murmurations (Hot Tomato Press, 2020), and three chapbooks, Spell to Spell (above/ground Press, 2018), This End of the World: Notes to Robert Kroetsch (Apt. 9 Press, 2016) and Calendar Girls (above/ground Press, 2006).

She is the editor of the anthology of critical essays: From the Word to the Place: The Work of Michael Anania (MadHat Press, 2022). She is an associate professor of English at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY and a native of Northwest Arkansas.