Time runs out warps into itself strata after strata
diminishing into a dot before me that I vanish into
Future-Past-the Now all one and the same
so this is what Death is I'm not impressed
the silence solidifies Memory contrives to put the world back
together like a cut-out Dada collage
a postcard blue sky hastily assembled against some remembered
building famous for something or other and a photo of you
ripped out of an I don't know stuck in place
glue seeping around edges like a white blood
Life is an Hannah HΓΆch photomontage
Time congeals like a fried egg with a ciggie stuck in its yoke
I laugh at memory's vain attempts "Don't bother!" I tell it
in a voice like the white space between written words
the world swirls anti- clockwise down the plug hole of reality
If this is Death as I say I'm not impressed
*
Jan had fallen and hurt her head at Valletta...a great big blue ****** bruise. I was very worried about her and she awoke in the early hours of the morning. I got up to make her tea. I had a very sore throat....could hardly swallow my own saliva. I was waiting for the kettle to boil and idly bite into a slice of bread with delicious Maltese marmalade. I had just made the tea when I found I was unable to swallow the last bite...it got stuck in my throat and I was busy losing consciousness. Time was running away from me and everything was going black. Jan said I just collapsed and crashed to the floor...all I knew was that the world had gone away and everything was dark. Our Maltese friend said that the famous arch in Gozo that collapsed had collapsed from the bottom...."...like a too large lady on too high high heels." I was obviously doing my charades impression of the Gozo arch meeting its end. I too was busy meeting my end....but just before the world was cut from under my feet I dashed a slurp of tea into me which must have in turn helped to make the bolus of bread go down just in time. When consciousness lapped back into my skull I was only aware of water in my mouth and coming out of my nose....I thought I was drowning in the dark and had no notion how I had fallen into such a notion of an ocean. Jan was beside her self and then beside me as I made it back just in time to crawl back into life and the being of me...