Death

…

/ wordsforghosts / 2 Comments

For the one I hardly knew. Forgive me, I don’t know what else to do…

 

Today I read the last words you ever wrote:

it was a diary of your feelings

& your last poem…

 

You wrote so beautifully about the sky between

sentences expressing a tiredness so deep

you just wanted to die.


Knowing I failed to help you lift your head

more often; to help ease your burden;

to love you as you deserved to be.

 

Now there is no way to say sorry

& stay with you in that other world

you wrote of in you last poem,


one you wrote for me…

despite being only another drunk,

an idiot, rare & wild only to you,


yet even I could see with these

eyes of “ever changing colour”

how delicately, intricately woven you were

before your threads

fell away.

on the wind

 

The Funeral

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I tried smiling at your funeral,

to avoid the choking weeds of grief.


Breathing trees

no longer naked,

their limbs veiling then revealing 

a diamond-clear sky,

stood beside the road leading

to the building where your family was mourning.

  

(When she asked me where you’d gone, 

I told your daughter you had

become one with nature;


every flower,

the lambent limbs of sunlight

& all those dignified trees, 

believing

you would like that answer.


I hope I wasn’t wrong.)


A vodka (double vodka) before

the eulogy, 

& another 

(& another) after

it was over.


Then, outside: cold bright sunlight,

dreaming of you dancing; 


the prosody of your body,

singing,

as roses red & white

flowed from your hips,

replacing the weeds &

loosening their grip,

 

just long enough to bring 

some small relief


from the reality of your absence.


Yet there was nothing except

 

the brutal eloquence


of silence.

Heart Rat

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Your heart rat escaped the ribcage

                                                        trap

too late to save its brain:

 

they peeled back the skin, broke the skull beneath

to search for what cannot be found.

 

Line after line we try

to shed our shroud of lies.

I aim too high,

                            afraid

not of hights but the oubliette

where words forget to hide our fear,

 

& then the poem disappears

                                                         when

you tell me how you held her in your hands

as she died.

 

Your heart rat was one of the lucky ones:

 

She was loved,

not experimented on.

 

If only

              we could all be so lucky…

 

 

“Everything I love will die / in due time”*

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Nothing left but the wet
decaying process
of repetition,
                not you
but something else;
unheimlich; the body
rigid
though not yet cold;

failing to feel the ground
beneath my feet
                trembling;
I leave the room
to try & force my fists & skull
                through a wall.

Sometimes I forget that you’re gone.

Sometimes I hate you for leaving,

but as you told me “c’est la vie:
la tristesse sera fini bientôt,

mais je suis désolé mon enfant.”

Sometimes I forget your face & panic.

Sometimes I take solace knowing
that now you’re nothing

& sometimes I can’t stand it.

My greatest regret will forever be
not being there to see
                your final breath.

                            &
what I whispered to you when
                all energy had left
will remain a secret
I will keep forever…

* Iron Chic – Know What I Mean, Jellybean

The Animal

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To see and be the ugly things of life.

To know there is terror in the sublime.

To be
a biological organism,
a bipedal mammal
with opposable thumbs;
 
witness the animals as they come together
to gather round the fire
& make their greatest mistake as
they take the communication system
moulded from noises and turn it
into language:
                a feed-back loop into which members of the group
                will descend when
                they discover how
                to talk to themselves
                & not others;

necessary lie of grammar, to anchor
our respective first-person perspective  
it gave rise to the lie that is the “I”,
                the insistence
that there is something different inside of us.

Can you appreciate sensation: the feeling
of vibration;
the harmony of eternal energy
composing & flowing through us?

Is there hope to be discovered
                            of escape
from the day to day
after day after day
of feeling dull & repetitive
& dull &
the same?