I wake reciting lines
mouthing syllables
I thought were gone

Coldly raging
at the same hollow loss
on the edge of my dreams
you are turning away

How does it feel?

It feels like my child-dreams
the soundless screaming descent
into bottle-green dark
as the light recedes to a halo
I know I am dying

I wake drenched in this
my thoughts turn you over
and over and I ask
Could I ever have read you?

I leafed through you, yes
then put you aside
left your pages fluttering


27/12/20

The day after dying,
Your mortal shell will rot
And be filled with sleeping pills
No, sugar can not
Hide the pain you feel
From failing your many deaths,
Immortal now and always,
A hundred final breaths.

The day after dying,
You're nothing but a husk,
An empty, rotting hell
That lies awake until dusk,
Just contemplating painful existence
That wounds every inch of you.
Words, knives, and other pains
Don't feel enough in joy's lieu.

The day after dying,
Nothing will even change.
You'll still be a hopeless wreck.
You'll still be from peers estranged.
You'll still be a walking corpse.
You'll still never be alive.
You'll always wish you'd succeeded.
You'll feel useless just like I've.

I'm looking at branches
With baby buds
Waiting to bubble open
Above seeded and fertilized lawns,
Growing lush between our toes,
Soft beneath reclining heads
Interpreting whales and camels above.

Moons rise. Suns set.

Our first home
Was a skeleton with skin shingles;
Floors with no sounds;
Rooms with no emotions.
The car, all shiny and new,
Left an oil stain on the asphalt.

Wheels are turning.

My innocent, wide-eyed believers
Now share the same blameless lies
With innocent, wide-eyed believers.

Suns rise. Moons set.

Don't eat that or drink this.
Roll up your sleeve.

Astronauts blasted off for the ISS
Wearing masks.
Before their return,
We will cut, rake, bag and burn.

No money or power –
Gifts me another hour.
No matter the time.
Even at my prime.
Death will be mine –

It's funny how hospitals,
Whence one goes to heal
Or die,
Focus ones mind upon
Profound things,

Life and death for sure
But also the life that's been lived
The life being lived,
Being dead and also
The process of dying,

I do not wish to die
In a hospital ward,
I have seen this and
I have heard it
And it is horrid,

No,
Let me pass good Lord
In the arms of a beautiful woman,
Or the embrace of a wooden boat,
With sails full and ocean spray
All about me,

Let me die astride a galloping horse,
Or in the metal clashing of swords,
The crack and ping of an airsoft war
Or the twang and thud of archery,

Let me pass on a zip wire Lord,
With the scream of a block
In my ears,
Or wining and dining
With my loved ones,

Any of these things Lord will do,
Or anything else the same,
But let me die while living Lord,
Not on a hospital ward
In shame

the fruit of their few
joyful days together