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death is a door
Love entered for us
removing the locks
and gave us the key

In death’s fiery furnace
Love’s waiting there
truth’s heavy sword
cuts heart soul and mind

death’s raging fire
is Love’s cleansing flame
the victim no victim
outwitting the dark

in death’s scribbled book
the world’s sorrows writ large
Love restores chapters
wrest from death’s left hand

to death’s extreme answer
comes Love’s firm reply
new life springs up
midst the dust smoke and ash

Love’s final question
demands our reply
can sorrow get peace
will peace replace ire

© 2001 Nancy Rakoczy.
All Rights Reserved



in Queens

the Battle of Long Island was fought

on this Pakistani guy’s lawn

and all he has to show for it is a

granite bench with the week’s epitaph

spray painted in pastel pinks and blues

against the favorite color of our founders

which is always old world grey


Urdu swirls

around this reminder of the

new order and their necessary rifle pit while

his coiled green garden hose is as close as

he’ll get to a snake charmer

his peacock blue breast lies hidden

behind a stony stare

a new mailbox and other brass accessories

twinkle and wink at the passerby

and at our forefathers too

whose collective imaginations probably

stopped short of this guy when

they drafted the Constitution

© 2007 Nancy Rakoczy. All Rights Reserved
.

voices
tell my brother
to build
a giant eye
he obeys
and stands grinding

night
after
night
he is
bent over
hands together
you’d think
he’s praying

where I crouch
from top
the stairs
I hear
the
whisper
of
glass
on
glass
his evening ritual

around
and
around
his hands
make a
circle
making a
giant
eye

I know
what he’s doing
I want to do it too

he’s making stronger glasses
to peer into the night

he wants to see aliens

I want to see God

together we
will pull down the night
examine the darkness and
see what it hides

© 2004 Nancy Rakoczy.
All Rights Reserved