Death relived the race, flying
first to tragedy, next to context.
Imagine a patch, a circle with people
and flowers. Death did something good—
offered help, gave gentle assignments.
But Nature answered with violence quickly.
You wouldn’t believe the block.
***

So that’s the easy-reading version. A blackout poem is where you take an article (newspaper, magazine, etc.) and black out all the words except the ones you want to keep. The spacing of the words is part of the challenge. Below is a version that more closely mimics the spacing in the article this poem came from. It gets messy to read because WordPress doesn’t allow very good control of spacing (in the context of poetry).

***

death

relived

the race

flying

first                to                                    tragedy

next

to

context.

imagine

a patch               a circle with

people

and

flowers.

death                       did something

good

offered

help

gave

gentle

assignments.

But

Nature

answered

with

violence

quickly.

you wouldn’t believe

the block.