No Peace In Suicide (1979) Poem by Stan Petrovich

Grandiose, spread-eagled, he is lofted from the window
Only for his head to bond in a pool of blood
-Never ming the five kids in the blowing snow-
This man's last act was a thud.

Women, they say, prefer pills,
While men a pearl-handled pistol.
Either effectively kills;
You become a self-defeating missile.

Once I drove high into the rainy mountains
On the Navajo Resevation
To compose a final note of my intentions,
And end it all, final anti-insurrection.

But that old ball point pen kept skipping
And the note was illegible.
I threw it nto the pine cones dripping
And tried to think of things more tangible.

Like driving to Gallup on a Saturday night,
Drinking with the Indians, a guttersnipe,
And, barring accident, wandering home,
To marry my problems to the bone.

Is it best to live as long as possible
In a painful body and senseless drift?
To blast forth a day at a time
And make the best of this shameful shrift?