As a literal phemomenon, Death is fearful.
As paradox, an antidote to fear.
As life in death, it focuses on life.
As something absurd, one must cope with it,
Edmund Husserl or Viktor Frankl’ll help;
If literal ’n figural, generates fear ’n hope,
As “cowards die many times ’fore their deaths.”
If cyclic, it mitigates much of fear,
If linear, leads to dread—life after death:
Go to Edmund Husserl and he will help.
Thus, hacked to death, dear Death, by perceivers;
But when the worst comes to the worst, I quit!
***
When I am in pain,
My ego would be the first to leave,
As rats would a sinking ship;
The greater the pain the faster it leaves!
My drives get ready to play a masochistic role.
All philosophers, Cosmologists,
Ontologists, Monists, Dualists, Pluralists,
Eschatologists, Epistemologists et al
Hastily retreat, like true fair-weather friends,
Except Kierkegaard and his lieutenants,
Edmund Husserl and Viktor Frankl: they
Stand by me; help me, first of all,
To see meaning in the situation
Where there is apparently none.
The pain starts mitigating.
The triumvirs prompt me to be positive
And do things that I can— in the circumstances,
Ignoring things I cannot possibly do or undo.
Then I find my other companions,
Knowledge, Reason, Experience, etc.,
Slowly joining hands and doing their bit.
Thank God, there is a Kierkegaard!
— Ram, R. V.
Published in The Creative Collective Anthology
Series 2, Graldine Taylor, Ed. Amazon, 2017
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