without a prayer

Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM)

CALM Project84: 84 life-size statues of men on top of the ITV (Independent Television) buildings in London, sculpture by Mark Jenkins*, 2018

Recently, over at Poetic Outlaws, Erik Rittenberry wrote movingly (and graphically) about witnessing, while on duty as a firefighter, a man’s suicide (link below). Due to events in my own life, the issue of suicide, and male suicide in particular, has long occupied my mind. In 2019, Verve Press (UK) published an anthology of “poems on male suicide, vulnerability, grief and hope” called Eighty-Four (ed. Helen Calcutt), in support of CALM’s Project84, a campaign drawing attention to the high and rising rate of male suicide. In the UK, suicide is the number one cause of death for men under the age of 45, and on average, 84 men commit suicide per week. I was honoured to have a poem included in the anthology.

face

he found his friend 
found the body of his friend 
found the body kneeling 
kneeling without a prayer

he found the body kneeling 
kneeling at the end 
of an invisible thread
of the finest gossamer 
as though it had 
always been there 

he found the body 
saw the face 
the skin chalk 
the eyes glass
he found the body 
searched the face 
for a reflection 
in the glass
a name on the tongue

he found the body 
he found the body 
of his friend
he found his friend
and kneeling 
without a prayer 
he fell off the face         
of love

Project84, sculpture by Mark Jenkins, 2018

*Mark Jenkins (b. 1970) is an American artist known for sculptural street installations that often involve life-size figures interacting with the urban environment. As with Project84, it’s not always obvious the figures are not living beings. His website is here.

I Saw a Man Take his Own Life Today