After poor old Mortimer was dead
by his grave ~ a flowerbed
Their hands glide across his skin like death
The coolness of hands, without emotion, felt by none
'It burns, it freezes, it hurts so much, make it stop'
Is what he would say had he one breath of life left
Instead he lays there with a slack, stone cold expression
His eyes closed to hide the lack of life they present
He cannot see the horrors of the embalming
He cannot feel when they change his clothes
He cannot sense the sorrow of the ones who mourn
And when it’s finally over, he cannot feel the heat of a thousand suns reducing him
Reducing him to nothing but ashes, to be kept away and as something precious as diamond
Yet worth overall, less than dirt
His post mortem will always end his humanity
-Only a Poet-
is envious of the dead
(Amtrak R5: June, 2021)
Distant melancholic music plays.
Dead flowers swoon and sway
In the molten breeze of an August afternoon.
Colors lost too soon,
Faded and forsaken by the relentless beat
Of an angry sun.
Forlorn and forgotten by the living,
Sight and scent no longer giving pleasure
To jaded eyes ever longing
For the newness of things.
Alas, death saves its own,
Finding home in a wasteland
of discarded memories and long lost days,
Resurrected in hearts and minds
Held captive by the lure and love
Of the simple abject beauty of decay.
Is this life we live,
the life we know,
really death
from another plane
Is the hurt we suffer,
and the struggle we bear,
the result
of another realm
Are the visions we see,
and the insights unnamed,
but a window
into that world
Is what we call life,
what they call death,
with its reckoning
left untold
(Rosemont Pennsylvania: April, 2020)
We are what we do;
we are what we say
As day becomes night,
and night becomes day
We are twice begotten;
we are twice betrayed
Forgiveness in hiding
—redemption misplayed
(West Philadelphia: February, 2020)
Post Mortem by David Lustrup 2011
Here I lay....dead
Icy ,black, thick blood, motionless in my veins
Yet i see from my eyes.
Numbness, this world of grey.
I hear the sound of birds wings--scratching, fluttering, playing in reverse.
I lay in rigor, the world goes by in scattered frames.
And the sound is out of sync.
Deafening silence. The icy chill in these bladed raindrops.
I feel them hit my naked lifeless body like anvils,
As I lie cold and dead in this freezing grave of your absence.
One day for sure our life must end
as we depart from foe or friend,
from pain or strife, despair or joy
our body just a broken toy.
While friends all weep and foes rejoice
will we then listen to their voice
and wonder why we are not dead
but still can hear the things they said.
It's then that we at last will find
the I that's me is just our mind,
the living body that we bore
was just the earthly cloak we wore.
One day for sure we'll know indeed
the fruits we'll bear from living's seed
and join with minds just like our own
alas, not all are welcomed home.
If we have lived a life of hate
then death will take us through a gate
where we'll reside with those we find
have naught but hate within their mind.
But if we've played a loving hand
we'll then enjoy this promised land
to live again as we pass through
with those who are still kind and true.
One day for sure our life must end
but only on this earth my friend,
how we live now will guide the way
to where at last we’ll get to stay!
Ivor G Davies
What was this unarticulated joy
that beat inside my chest?
That which was expected and is past
reflected numens chanting to my spirit,
as if subdivided in my superconsciousness,
I may not bear them as a whole
though holy they may be...
one mystery selects a lifetime as its drum
and makes the years crescendo
poco a poco from its infancy
unto the crashing storm of age
when breath itself implodes.
I think it is too much--
a joy the mind at quest must know
and not to be endured.
I think a man must shake his fist
in protest as Beethoven did,
unable to sustain it to the end.
It is the depth and height of ecstasy
of which its single aim
is to expire.
~
post-mortem note to mr. eliot
dearest thomas,
having lived long enough to see the
a-bomb drop, one wonders if you had
rethought your infamous ending
to “The Hollow Men,”
for most certainly
the world will not go with a
whimper,
we would be so lucky
to be rolled up in the fetus position
down deep in a shadowy corner,
to wither away “whimpering”
a slow & silent
personal demise,
each one of us---
however,
as things look,
the a-bomb will appear a walk in the
park, compared to what we have
coming---
the only justice is that it’s exactly
what we all
deserve.
Man fears time
That’s why we waste it
We keep running against time
‘Cause we know we can’t chase it..
Why do we keep waiting
For something that’s never there?
Instead of just accepting
The truth no matter how unfair?
Until the damage is done
And there’s no place to go
When the weeping has begun
There’s nothing left to show..
They say what ifs and could’ve beens
Are the last words of a fool
And giving up on dreams
Is something only cowards do..
But regrets never come first
And sorry is always late
The retribution is a big black hearse
For us victims of time, preys of fate..
I have struggled and craved
For revenge, respect and redemption
But I have always failed
Now my consolation, is oblivion..
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