Lazarus by Peter Taylor

The Raising of Lazarus (After Rembrandt), by Vincent Van Gogh, 1890.

Lazarus
 
Lazarus arose from the dead
after four days and then faced murder
to prove it could happen.
 
I took me twenty years to prove it
and I didn’t even have to die first.
I just stopped writing.
 
At first my notebooks were very angry.
Breathe! they hissed, each page
compressing its weight onto my chest until
I coughed and they forgave me.
 
The world is complicated, dying is complicated,
and what happens afterwards is anyone’s guess.
Sometimes writing helps.

Peter Taylor

Peter Taylor has published Trainer, The Masons, and Aphorisms, and his experimental verse play, Antietam, won honourable mention in the international War Poetry Contest. His poems have appeared in Anansesem, Aperçus Quarterly, Call & Response, Contemporary Verse 2, Construction, The Copperfield Review, Descant, Eunoia, Fade, Forage, Frostwriting, The Glass Coin, Grain, Ink, Sweat & Tears, The Linnet’s Wings, Nether, Petrichor Review, Phantom Kangaroo, Pirene’s Fountain, Poetry Australia, Pyrta, and StepAway Magazine. He lives in Aurora, Ontario.