Black Tambourine by Rick Richardson

Death is a dark knife
that cuts the light
through the window.
A black car in the night.
A burning cigarette
bursting on the highway.
A fire going out.
A gypsy with whiskey
breath shaking
a black tambourine.

~~~~~

Black Tambourine Rebuttal by NM Lipstadt

Death is a lit light,
sundering the slowing,
defeating the resistance,
accepting with gratitude the surrendering of labored breathing,
tallying as complete the summation of
all the trials of errors
these accumulations,
accompanied
fittingly,
by an 1812 overture music spectacular,
with fireworks and cannons
pronouncing
victory, at long last!

a V-D Day,
over the onerous blackness
of too many soleless nights,
instead it offers a comforter
of Where Shelter?
Here!

in  our starry be-Knighted,
our jointed  crowning neath tapestry blanket of transport to
our immortality sheltering.

do not doubt its
peculiar nourishing
is
bountiful certainty