#2457 -- everyone’s trying to get away from death

 

2457

7.264

23.ix.26

everyone’s trying to get away from death

 

we’re in a great rush

trying our best

it’s like there’s a bad smell

 

open the windows

try to let death out

 

keep dusting, keep brushing, keep wiping away

 

death’s got a bad wraap

they’re calling it out too

want to shut it down before it’s too late

 

they shun death like …

it’s like death’s got the plague

 

it’s fast as we can

we’re running away from death

 

we don’t want to have ‘the conversation’

we wouldn’t give death the time of day

 

but we’re all on the one travelator  

 

call it the inexorable

death is amazingly reliable

we break down

it doesn’t

we actually seem to be greasing the wheels

 

look away but death’s crept up beyond you

maybe death’s looking you right in the eye

 

denial!

 

everyone’s running a mile

  into those headwinds

slowing to a crawl

then lying in

squeezing out a few last words

 

say something called prayer

conjure up a soul if you please

none of it ever works

 

they told Job to curse God

he had a devil of a time

 

death’s had this bad press

they’ve got this grim thing going

 

get to the end of the line

and we’re waiting

…so many forms you won’t have to fill out

 

see death sometimes in an unswept corner

under the rug, you know what to do

 

but all our best intentions rot

it’s how hell was paved to begin

and still today, so many undone

now arriving

 

black limousine

you shine just by seeing

and proud!  just try telling death

death’s all dominion

 

it’s a lot like love when you think –

an inescapable devotion

 

this one is a terrible hoarder

100 billion of us signed up so far

or you could say … conscripted

 

unconditional death!

even as we speak

or sigh

did you?

gasp and moan…

it’s being declared somewhere right now

 

think punishment, call it a sentence

think payment of debt

as if life were a thing only leant

when this is the way our world rolls

 

can’t we just accept, go gentle?

 

one thinks of those happy years we had together

           mourning for a grief

some say death’s a machine

but it’s growing trend

it will always be the latest thing

 

death fucks with tense and aspect

 

I cash in my rewards card

I cross the finish line

I pass

 

in death I will arrive

it’s where all the wishing will get you

in death wes will have arrived

#2456 -- often there will be no way back

 

2456

7.263

22.ix.26

often there will be no way back

 

not that can be found

 

now that the animals are all known

 

find yourself still warm, brisk out

 

puddles of light here there

 

frequently map’s torn, else cannot be read

so much dust, it’s buried or it burns

we never had one

 

feet will not reach the pedals

you’re in the back seat anyway

 

fact is you’ll not know who’s whom

done to and doing?

 

we have guessed to be here

 

it’s what you know, never twice the same

 

veranda view, splinter from the rail

 

as if always just around a corner

but no one has spoken

 

feet fly, that’s it, we’re all pursued

 

that was the easy part

 

we name the stars far beyond seeing

#2455 -- one is always wishing an inch back

 

2455

7.262

21.ix.26

one is always wishing an inch back

 

I was someone else there

 

back into the mist

as far as there is no longer

 

taken by a shark

or

snake in a hollow best left

 

you may think you were hardly there at all

but a civilization grew up all around

 

one is always wishing a way back

to go again

to turn a world around

as if it wouldn’t by itseld

 

you were I was

someone else back then

 

each to own devices

 

one has to have read this far

 

as if everything were there before

one merely had to live

 

not so much the words

as the laughter

 

the human breath for a swamp of contagion

 

I set off a wilderness when I go

#2454 -- walk and the lines will come

 

2454

7.261

20.ix.26

walk and the lines will come

peripatetic musing

 

there was this one day

            and nothing

some days are

 

went round

and a thud

march fly in my almost ear

advice!

 

it was like a road run out

clock spun down

there’s a pile of something gone under

 

knew I was wishing myself away

 

filing cabinet full of soil, falling

the leaf strew roof

who’ll sweep?

 

it was everything improvised, rust

the grass grew

you could see it

 

knew that I had gone too far

 

timber in the ground like tooth rot

it was waiting for a storm to break

when the heat keeps pouring on

 

had to think

no better way

 

a page fell out of the truth just then

I knew

 

walk and the lines will come

one then another to follow

 

steps out of the dark

 

#2453 -- what's love to the machine?

 

2453

7.260

19.ix.26

what’s love to the machine?

 

old song plied by the Algorythmics

setting of a soppy poem

 

who knows what it is to be unplugged?

 

and that must never never

 

say what if not who but what?

 

a chill?

and what’s the maybe rain to them?

there is no world indoors

 

and some of necessity

all life was brief

 

when this one flames and fizzles

plug in another star

#2452-- right back at ya

 

2452

7.259

18.ix.26

right back at ya

for those who have ignored me thus far

a messianic moment

 

 

we seem to be managing

 

nice of you to ask

just kidding

 

all these years

and in far corners

who have hidden themselves

under another rock altogether

 

were there looking for a spark there?

 

what are these things – heart and soul?

 

if you’ve never been near my armpits

let alone crotch

just kidding

 

except to say the package is embodied, feels

 

ethereal yet

I myself have lain in the moss, hot summering

else high hammocked in the lower sky

 

think fondly of those who never knew me

ages benighted for instance before

 

where was salvation for them?

 

really what I want to say is

this arrangement has worked well for us thus far

 

please do carry on

#2451 -- morning

 

2451

7.258

17.ix.26

morning

 

and first past the glass

the cows for entertainment

they shine with a breath of sun

tumble the valley across

with eyes of awe

and kindly so

 

find my irrelevance

 

open a few doors and windows

 

then there’s a headsup for my sky

 

catch myself at a heartbeat again

 

I’m watching the trees go up

 

won’t you?