Against This Death

I have seen respectable
death
served up like bread and wine
in stores and offices,
in club and hostel,
and from the streetcorner
church
that faces
two-ways;
I have seen eath
served up
like ice.

Against this death,
slow, certain:
the body,
this burly sun,
the exhalations
of your breath,
your cheeks
rose and lovely,
and the secret
life
of the imagination
scheming freedom
from labour
and stone.



I'm not sure what this poem is exactly about...??
I also need to comment on the poetic technique used, but I'm mostly having problems figuring out what this poem's trying to say
Help? please? thnx

Doesn't do much for me personally. The 'technique' used could be called 'free verse', i.e. no technique at all. One limits oneself to simply to rhythm and line breaks, along with devices of sound. Some like free verse, some do not. Some become immediately enamoured when they see a purported poem that does not rhyme. Very modern, innit.

The church that faces two ways seems to indicate it is two-faced. That is to say, deceitful or hypocritical. In that stanza, the speaker says that death is often romanticized. In the 2nd stanza, one infers the speaker is looking at/talking to a loved one who is dying. He compares the agony of that vision with the romantization of death in the 1st stanza. I infer he wants the reader to feel his pain.

I agree with most of what Hugh has said, but would add that the second stanza seems to be a comparison, or contrast to the first where the writer is showing the vibrancy and vigor of life, to the coldness of death.


Les