At one.forty-five, anti meridiem
I blink, half-sit-half-lie and squirm
in a cartel of intricate inquiry.

He must be hurting inordinately
to wish me death and calamity.

Who and where is he?
How and why does he?

Simple five-word questions
seeking conclusive resolutions
for well over a millennium.

Frazzled and woefully sapped
from this anarchic, chaotic task
I turn for the promising refuge
of my orderly book-rack.

❋

Over and over again,
I read the masterly treatise
and really try to take it as a guide.

❋

The book has foresight.

It says there is no death

which my friend has wittingly wished me
in his anguished wrath.

Life is eternal, infinite.

Only the spirit changes over
to some other wardrobe
or maybe transitions
to another dimension
purgatory or paradise.

❋

We never really die and likewise
the loved and the not so loved
also survive.

❋

But life often defies explanations
not to mention all expert expositions.

I feel sadly feeble and disillusioned
to see

an orphan having the nose
hard against the grindstone

a spouse lonely and forlorn
fighting it out all alone

a disconsolate father
devastated by the departure
of a youthful son......
or a blooming daughter.

a dashing soldier
who somberly carries the cadaver
....the cold inert clay of a dead comrade

a pining sibling.........
a friend irredeemably lost.........
the poor dead without
and ****** with the ***......
a zealot who lost the plot
or martyrs who bravely fought.....

❉

The book says they are all here
and we still find them nowhere
at least not as companions
in our worldly sojourn.

The author exhorts -
those who are gone still see us
feel us.

And I smile wryly, a little ruefully
at the still living, stranded passengers
in one too many crowded lanes
on this gross, physical plane
devoid of all succor even from a ghost

slippery yet subtle.

If only there was a real life Whoopi †
we all would be as lucky as the demure Demi
and Patrick Swayze would do the reel drill
in real time indubitably.

Alas!!!
celluloid existence is pure imagination
.....just neat fiction.

And the impeccable book.....
though elegant
seems utterly untrue.

❋

I therefore can not take heart
from the prophesied fact
that the dead are not really dead

not ever, or at least not yet....

Yes, they may be right beside
but unless we cross over to the other side
or they someday decide to travel back in time

the living will always be somewhat dead somewhere
and the dead will always be somewhat alive somewhere

accidentally meeting.....
sometimes......

from across the great divide
in a nebulous twilight

but mostly waiting, waiting....
for the wait to end

and to be terminally united
either fully alive
or completely dead.


† Reference made to the 1990 film 'Ghost'. More information at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost(1990film)