Notes About The Poem

From the book: Voices from Clark Cemetery

Harvey Denning 1909-1923

Harvey Denning

1909 – 1923


“I saw the universe a thousand times.”
I saw the face of God
Spread out across the sky
Like a million cities on fire.
Like Troy cut into little pieces
By the slashing sword of Achilles.
Cut to shreds and bleeding.
There on the ramparts
There inside the fissures and crevices
Of ten thousand unknown dreams.
I read the stories of Homer
And the tales of a thousand and one Arabian nights.
And I read the solemnly immortal words
Of Longfellow, Poe and Defoe.
And I decided inside my mind long before I died
To perhaps write the greatest story ever told.
But I fell from my tree house
There on Dorland Street
There in the cool shadows of the walnut tree.
What would have been my story I wonder.
What visions would I have conjured
For all to read and envision?
My friend, will you write my story now?
Will you take pen in hand and possess my voice?
Will you find the noble courage to speak for me?
This forgotten dead soul
Buried here in the dark dust of Clark Cemetery?
If you kindly consent,
Please begin it with these words:
“I saw the universe a thousand times.”
Copyright © | Year Posted 2014

Poem

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Hoffman Avatar
March 16, 2023 at 7:32 AM
Wow! What a masterpiece, my friend.Bravo!
Duncan Avatar
March 15, 2023 at 5:42 PM
Nice lines up there :)
Akande Avatar
March 15, 2023 at 1:38 PM
The allusive and hyperbolic language make the ideas capsulated in the poem more obvious and fascinating...this is a good work!
Ristretto Avatar
August 5, 2015 at 7:40 AM
Holy crap! How did you do this? Such beautiful opening language (with Prufrock allusions) that made my mouth water. And to end on such a desperate, empty, nihilistic note: no one will tell his story. This ellegy is only an elegy: a brief, respectful gesture toward a person's life that has no time to tell an Homeric epic (as he wished to write). And the elegance of establishing his age: the small reference to the tree house. This is Prufrock in the mind of a child.
Carmack Avatar
October 11, 2014 at 11:30 AM
Nice.
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