Dead Man’s Fingers
The tension between us
Is a high wire act, our little Hamlet
Played on a stage of rotted wood
A fungus colonizing our substrate
My weed is your Bulleit Bourbon
Your rye whiskey is my Grandma’s Stash
(You say to my turned back) and this land
Is not some Jeffersonian pie-in-the-sky
It’s the fruit of dirt mailed around the globe
Give me space and you’ll find the dapple
In my eye
Again
The shadowed eve of our long day
Allows a slight repair: we’re on the path
To the fallen barn and at the base
Of a mossy ash you find a Scarlet Elf Cup,
Brushing back debris you uncover five black
Eruptions of Dead Man’s Fingers
You don’t bother to look up
8 thoughts on "Dead Man’s Fingers"
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Jim – Wonderful to read your poems again! Love “We’re on the path/To the fallen barn.” Says so much more than the words.
Having never heard of dead man’s fingers, I stopped to look it up; which gave me an even deeper appreciation of this poem and your reference to Hamlet! And the ending line! So complex and well done!
Your work always makes me think. Such a gift.
I really enjoyed this.
Wow Jim!
“our little Hamlet
Played on a stage of rotted wood
A fungus colonizing our substrate”
Jim I had to force myself to finish this
it’s so good
I got jealous for a moment
I wouldn’t change a single word
(hey, there’s some shrooms growing outa that cow patty, maybe you could compromise)
Jim, praise be to you and your crafty ways…
Jim Lally-I just wrote a Dead Man’s Finger poem, too. It was inspired by a photo on FB Linda Bryant posted. Except her photo claimed the fungus was dead man’s toes. so I tried to write that poem, but then, bumfuzzled as to what to write, I looked them up and voila not toe but fingers arose.