Tag Archives: death

Dying Beliefs

Dying on a Monday
like a battery
a moth
a match
a monarchy.

Dying like
a bombing comedian
embracing the inevitable
as if it were
a plastic comb in the sink
or a large fuzzy mascot.

Dying
on the pavement waiting
for a meandering street sweeper or a
half-drunken janitor
to lethargically
collect what is left
of this detritus
this tangle of limbs
this withering ruckus.

Dying
to sing like the bird on the sill
just don’t want the reviews.

Dying to beat
the crowd
the drums
the record
the crossword.

Dying in the sun
and in the rain
and in the filth of your charade.

Dying on wholesale
at Costco
aisle 4:
the album
the musical
the sitcom of your life.

Dying beliefs
painting my clown face
with all of the things
I’ve done yesterday.

At The End Of Our Dream

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Mist white as a neighbour’s lie
spooks the immediate field of snapped hay strands
beyond the red-roofed townhomes
-rows of white walls facing down on
yards sloping towards me
sparsely populated by chickens with no heads.

A grey horse with an unruly mane arises
from lying on its side in a side alley
and ambles its way towards me.

It has no face
no eyes no mouth.

As I arrive at the dark sodden earth
of a farmer’s field where the houses ended
I knew that it was the end of the dream as well
and that there would be nothing beyond the tree line
etched into a morosely still overcast.

If I continued onward
I would simply awaken
and that this was what the end would be like
-it was not frightening or sad
but just was

and that in my life when I passed
I would simply be awakening from this dream
-our dream,
and I would end up here
somewhere passed those farmer’s fields.

I would go without struggle and
without ceremony

because this is
how things truly are
beyond the curbs and the lights
and the boxes in which everything has been placed
and carefully labelled.

A figure was approaching
from beyond the trees.
A tall, gaunt shape in no hurry.
It is not time to meet them yet
but they will come
as does the night.
As calm as a still sea.

Turning back I see
that the path had changed
from when I came.

The way back home
is a little longer.

It always is.

Father

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In the cold air
In the night
In the yard
Seeing my father out there
standing
facing me
with his eyes closed

He pulls down the
oxygen mask on his face
so that it dangles
below his neck

The hospital gown loosely
hangs onto him
Exposing his white chest
just like I last saw him

“Thank you for coming. Thank you so much for being here.” 
He said
and I can still hear it
everyday
in traffic
brushing my teeth
as I lie in bed and wait
for sleep

I didn’t know it at the time
but
those were his last words to me
before the monitors started flashing
the machines started beeping
and the nurses came rushing in
as he closed his eyes

A light switching off
on a living room family portrait
growing increasingly further away
until last words
are all that is left

He says something else now
He says it every day that
I’m here
And I’m trying to but
I still can’t hear it

Over all of this bullshit
that I call myself

but he's always been
standing right in front of me
the whole time.

The Great Upending

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When it breathes
upon your window
and smiles

When it strolls in
through the unlocked
patio door
between the curtains
like a breeze
like breath

When it comes
walking barefoot
towards your bedroom

When it crawls
between the sheets
and settles in

When it takes
your hand
like the hand of a child

and it whispers
in your ear

What do you know
about anything
at all now?

The moment
it becomes
a living thing
breathing all over you

Your soul
suddenly
a piece of glass
falling
into a great black sea

Unexpected
it arrives
as a storm
at your window
a hound
at your door
a stranger
in your bed

The moment
that everything
changes

that you never saw
coming

When I Pass

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When I pass
I don’t want flowers
or a sermon
or tears.

I want the shade of a tree,
a gentle breeze
and a bird song.

I want to be that bird
and that tree
and perhaps a snail.

I would still want to live
and I will.

It may be dark
for a little while
until there is light again

but it will come
as sure as the next sunrise
the next song
the next rain.

So don’t mourn for me
because I’m not there.

I’m in the trees
in the grass
in the air.

I’m everywhere
but in the box.

I’m already on my way
to something else.

Take this moment instead.
Take a deep breath.
Take a good look around and

don’t cry for angels
that won’t cry for you.

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One

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Mary was on the bus again today.
Same as every day on the
morning run to work
back seat in a skirt.

A startling dark sullen beauty
staring out the window
like I wasn’t there and
never would be.

Looking as though she were
plucked right out of the last day
I saw her
fifteen years ago
just before she passed,
pills and vodka.

Sweet Mary,
everybody loved you but you
nobody saw your pain and
here you are like a
hammer dropped on a glass table.

People would think that I’m crazy
for entertaining the idea of this
of her
and I’ve had this conversation
with myself many times.

But that was Mary.
I was sure of it
even though she hadn’t aged
a single day.

It wasn’t just my imagination,
trust me.

A girl that good-looking
everybody notices.

And we’ve been riding this bus
together for over a year now
so you could only imagine
how this has fucked with me.

It was no way to start your day
with your mind fixated
on her whether you liked it or not
all day
every day as
everything else starts to
peel away like paint under a flame.

How so much like her it would be to go
and do something like this to make it
possible somehow but reality has rules
and people don’t just come back.

Why would they?
What for?
When you die
you’re fucking free of all this.
Mary knew that.
That’s why she left.

You don’t notice
how time really passes
when you become lost in a world
that has already passed
and yet I have done nothing but
endure it because of
my soul-searing uncertainty
and questions that turned into doubts
it can’t be…it just simply cannot be
until now
finally too far gone to care
if I looked like a creep
or if the world was upside down
mid-ride
I got out of my seat and
approached her.

I had a good line
or didn’t.
I don’t know.
Overthought it.

“Excuse me, Miss. I know you don’t know me
but we ride the same bus and I always notice you
writing in that black book of yours
and I just wanted to know what it is
that you write about?”

She slammed the book shut.
I thought that the girl was going to tell me off
but instead she started to laugh.

“I’m writing a story about a guy that
sees a girl that’s been dead for a long time
on the bus every day to work but doesn’t
have the sense or the guts to
actually do anything
about it until one day and…
wait…”

She looked up at me with those
big beautiful eyes and mock smile.

“Stop me if you know this one.”

BECAUSE YOU ONCE SAID YOU LOVED ME

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Maybe I’ll blow
my brains out
in a car on a
crowded American freeway
to Mozart
with the taste of steak
still in my mouth
as a fly searches
the windshield
because all meaning
has become
a handful
of paper confetti.

Because the obviousness
of everything has
murdered all emotion.

Because all the wells
have been poisoned
and everyone wants a drink.

Because the
existential emptiness
underlying all
conversations about
the weather
haunts the soul.

Because lawyers are
expensive
but bullets are
almost free.

Because you once said you loved me.

Ice Cream Truck Goes To Mars

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When you’re high
or drunk
or both
it fucks up your piss
you think you’re done
or don’t
are you?
You’re not sure
but how long are you going to
just stand there
with your dick hanging out
waiting to be seen
maybe you want to be seen
you dirty fuck
so on that
you put it away
and walk a half block
further into darkness
only to have to piss again
and the dance continues
but it’s not a dance
perhaps people throughout
the centuries have struggled
with this maddeningly human
scenario of
pulling it out
only to put it away again and…

Do you hate me?
Do you love me?
Am I feeble
livid
reckless?

What am I after all
but just another
mad animal
rampaging through
the technology driven
wilderness?

And you consider
how you never calculate
into your day
the pisses
the shits
the eats
you never have as much time
as you think
ever
because you eat too much
you’re far too comfortable
without predators
you shit too much piss
way too much
and you don’t fuck at all
anymore
you might as well
be quarantined.

You’re a lost cause
aren’t you?

I really don’t know…
fuck it.

Ice cream truck goes to Mars.

MAN IN A HOTEL ROOM WITH A GUN

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Taking it all in
one long moment

sitting there
on the edge of the bed
with a gun in your hand
blood on the sheets
a brunette laying across them

naked
pale
stiff
like a mannequin

you don’t recognize the gun
the room
her
your clothes

You don’t know how you got there
at all

so you lie back
upon the bed
your head close
to her hip

taking it all in
one long moment

staring at the ceiling fan
spinning
a quiet shadow
across everything

before you close
your eyes

and try to wake up.

THE LIFE COACH

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You’re terrified of death because you don’t really know what it is, what it’s like, what comes after. You’ve spent your whole life building things up but all that will be gone in an instant and you are deeply troubled by the idea that there is nothing afterwards; that you just extinguish like a light, forever. Most people cannot bear the thought of it. That’s why we have drowned ourselves in religion for thousands of years.

“Talk dirty to me.”

The universe is apathetic to your condition. Throughout the centuries humanity is made to suffer; built to sing, to bleed, to create vast landscapes of art, music and poetry based on all that experience and in the end will receive nothing in return because even with our sentient intelligence, resilience, cultural and technological advancements –your life has no more value than that of an insects. That you thought it would be any different is nothing short of comedic.

“You’re a nasty piece of work. I like it.”

You all want to think that you’ll go to Heaven, that you’ll get some kind of reward for living or that you’ll return again somehow in someway, but you won’t and there is nothing after. You will die and your energy will return to the cosmos. It will most likely be distributed between a number of various elements such as comet dust, fungi on Mars, running water or part fucking dog fart.

“You’re gonna get it sideways.”

But I can tell you that nobody ever makes it off this planet. Not a chance. We are too greedy, selfish and weak to ever unite and conquer our own environment, never mind outer space, so all of these great inventions and discoveries are fuck all and nothing is worth a shit. We will perish with no understanding of the universe and with not having met any other intergalactic species that is how pathetic and insignificant we all are. In the end life is nothing more than senseless detritus wasting away on a floating cemetery filled with a bunch of fucking nobodies.”

“I gotta go. You’re getting it next time for sure.”

LATER, TALKING TO HARRY…

“Hey, how’s dating your life coach going?”

“Same. Think she knows everything. We all die. Nothing’s after. No point of anything. I’m a dog-fart.”

“Shit, doesn’t it get to you? I mean, this is all just so weird, Man. And you’re weird. I know she’s fucking weird….”

“Sure. Well, we can have these great in-depth discussions but honestly sometimes I feel like we’re just so disconnected. I mean, I keep trying to get with her but all I get back is that we’re all a bunch of losers that are going to die for nothing. It’s frustrating. Maybe it’s my approach but I don’t really get why it’s not working.”

“You gonna move on?”

“Nah. She’s still…interesting…and besides, my previous life coach makes her seem like a fucking optimist.”

“Well then, what can I say? Keep going. Sometimes you have to eat shit in order to see the sunlight.”