Abide
by Michael R. Burch

after Philip Larkin's "Aubade"

It is hard to understand or accept mortality—
such an alien concept: not to be.
Perhaps unsettling enough to spawn religion,
or to scare mutant fish out of a primordial sea

boiling like goopy green tea in a kettle.
Perhaps a man should exhibit more mettle
than to admit such fear, denying Nirvana exists
simply because we are stuck here in such a fine fettle.

And so we abide . . .
even in life, staring out across that dark brink.
And if the thought of death makes your questioning heart sink,
it is best not to drink
(or, drinking, certainly not to think).

Originally published by Light. Keywords/Tags: Philip Larkin, Aubade, abide, death, mortality, religion, drink, drinking, drunk, alcohol, fettle, mettle, Nirvana

You can call me names and make me fall.
But you don't know what I can do when my back's against the wall.
You can mock me and tell me I look like a freak.
But it's okay because these things don't make me weak.
We're all different. So why are we so afraid of how people walk, talk or think?
We're all different. So let's embrace it and have a drink.

"If you don't want to hear "I'm sorry" then I don't know what to say."
"You don't have to say anything. Even if you did, you wouldn't mean it anyway."
"We were great together. What did I do that was so wrong?"
"If you don't know, if you can't see how much you've changed, maybe you're too far gone."
"I haven't changed. I'm the same man I was before.
Yeah, I drink a little more.
But that doesn't mean you have to walk out the door."
"I don't want to. But you're not giving me much of a choice.
You don't listen to how much you're hurting me
no matter how much I raise my voice."
"You're hurting? You have no idea what I'm feeling inside.
You never asked why I started drinking.
You never even tried to understand.
Look, you said you don't want to walk.
So if you're willing to listen, I'm willing to talk."
"So let's talk."

Frankly,

All I really want is to drink myself to death.

I feel dangerous
Hatred, anger, adrenaline
Racing through me
Maybe I’ll take some pills
And have a drink
Just for fun
Let’s see.

I drink a perfect summer
fermented strawberry red
with a hint of liquorice aftertaste
from when the world was better
summers warmer and longer
and I wasn't even alive

I drink 
your being 
in short sips.

Todesfugue ("Death Fugue")
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you come dusk;
we drink you come midday, come morning, come night;
we drink you and drink you.
We’re digging a grave like a hole in the sky;
there’s sufficient room to lie there.
The man of the house plays with vipers; he writes
in the Teutonic darkness, “Your golden hair Margarete...”
He composes by starlight, whistles hounds to stand by,
whistles Jews to dig graves, where together they’ll lie.
He commands us to strike up bright tunes for the dance!

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you come dusk;
we drink you come dawn, come midday, come night;
we drink you and drink you.
The man of the house plays with serpents; he writes...
he writes as the night falls, “Your golden hair Margarete...
Your ashen hair Shulamith...”
We are digging dark graves where there’s more room, on high.
His screams, “Hey you, dig there!” and “Hey you, sing and dance!”
He grabs his black nightstick, his eyes pallid blue,
screaming, “Hey you―dig deeper! You others―sing, dance!”

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you come dusk;
we drink you come midday, come morning, come night;
we drink you and drink you.
The man of the house writes, “Your golden hair Margarete...
Your ashen hair Shulamith...” as he cultivates snakes.
He screams, “Play Death more sweetly! Death’s the master of Germany!”
He cries, “Scrape those dark strings, soon like black smoke you’ll rise
to your graves in the skies; there’s sufficient room for Jews there!”

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you come midnight;
we drink you come midday; Death’s the master of Germany!
We drink you come dusk; we drink you and drink you...
He’s a master of Death, his pale eyes deathly blue.
He fires leaden slugs, his aim level and true.
He writes as the night falls, “Your golden hair Margarete...”
He unleashes his hounds, grants us graves in the skies.
He plays with his serpents; Death’s the master of Germany...

“Your golden hair Margarete...
your ashen hair Shulamith...”

Paul Celan (1920-1970) was a Romanian Jew who wrote poems in German. He survived the Holocaust, despite the loss of his mother and father, to become one of the major German-language poets of the post–World War II era. His parents' deaths and the horrors of the Holocaust have been called the "defining forces" in Celan's poetry.

Keywords/Tags: Paul Celan, Holocaust poems, Holocaust poetry, Shoah, German, translation, black, milk, drink, vipers, serpents, hounds, grave, graves, golden, hair, Margarete, Shulamith, sing, dance, Death, master, Germany, Nazis, racism, antisemitism, injustice, brutality, genocide, ethnic cleansing, World War II, world conflicts