I.
Death dresses themselves with the purposeful flowers of heat daze;
Outside, in the transmission towers, in the pylons pregnant with high tension,
Above, in the red-hot cables that carry our words and deeds to the next machine,
In the trains and cablecars moving people about, sometimes swallowing them whole,
In the hours of sleep and in the hours of wake,
In dream and in the undream,
In real and in the unreal,
In the spores of livelihoods that twist along to survive this and other centuries.
Death awaits themselves for nobody, and nobody wishes them well;
Death be like a mistress looking to wed the missus’ blood,
Death be like a fountain where rivers of red turn a-times gold,
But Death is a Jesus still cross, whose faith never fell.
Death comes alike the blanket for children,
Death knows every song that turns a heart around,
They own a mellifluous house of linden,
And not one who ventures there is again found.
II.
Is all that’s lost forever lost, or is it lost merely for a time?
Is that which falls, crumbles and fade
Incapable of polishing its shade,
Is it impossible to piece it back for good?
Is that which was fated to be misunderstood?
Is death just time or time itself death?
What does eternal life even mean?
And what if I wasn’t the pen nor the gun—
What if I didn’t write the words that made my mum lonely
And my sister ashamed of sharing my blood
That made my wife curse me and my friends wish
To be free from my friendship—
But it was not the pen or the gun in me.
I did shoot dead the Bosniak girl in the woods,
And the young man in search of she.
Is all that’s lost forever lost?
Is all that holds a shade
Unfit to trial the way, bereft to endure the moss,
Is all that’s lost, locked forever away?
Or are we cursed to hold loss?
How long did Bruno carry his weight,
Above that blue mountain, into the minefield,
Without legs and without pain,
How well did Nguyen swim across the morass,
Without skin and without remorse,
And Linney charred by the palms, and Rodney,
But all the watch-kings have turned idle now,
And the firelighters like me are paling too.
The war was waged or staged for love,
Because it suited you to collect deaden things,
Keepsakes from half-remembered dreams—
So you could dance and play at night,
Deluding yourself you can bear sway,
And swear to them No, no, never was I afraid.
III.
I’d like to tell you how I died.
First of all, it wasn’t easy. And there was pain.
The lapse of reason clings to a tiny flame,
Until the moment you realize the next breath
Will be your last.
Then the shutdown starts. Like a program,
Something snaps and clogs the infrastructure.
There’s a moment you realize you are blind,
And there’s one you realize you’ll be gone.
There’s also one when you think about
What you’ve become and what you leave behind.
And I wish I could tell you there’s a grand light.
Hell, even a big darkness would do. I wish I could
Tell you there’s infinite fire or unending blue.
But there isn’t. Just in case you’re still wondering:
There isn’t.
Once I asked my dad what is death,
And he told me death was the absence of memory.
That as long as there was a tiny streak of memory,
There was immortality.
I remember I thought that we were living
In a world so full of memory; certainly,
Death was completely absent from our world.
I can put the phono on and there’s Johnny singing!
That way I made sure nobody ever died.
But that’s a trick only for a time.
The longer the years and days,
The longer the stretch
I need to play
Memory. And when I stopped seeing
My father’s face in my mind,
The outline in the photographs
I couldn’t connect.
Then I knew life is a shining tapestry and
What comes at its end it’s just a simple mess
That undoes its thread.
IV.
I live a moment with the song and the woman
Falling asleep by the night lights beside me
And I wish all a moment as good as this moment is
With the saxophono heart beating by the drum
In yet-undiscovered tongues and sudden strums
And eyes that seek around the infinite space
Across distances, bedsheets, and parsecs
So is our conjoined spirit at the unison time
Brittle and jocose as things start yearning to rhyme
This is the feeling and this is the dance
Drinking the water, knowing the word
The language of God and the knowledge of Death
The end of consciousness,
Brought forwards, going backward
Our occurrence
Here in good company of Cain, the farmer
And the mind-born river children of Manu
And the wintry flowers of May
May I take your coat, Darling?
Love is thy only victory if love is thy doing
Love is thy only save against the kipple
But mind the gap between thy vision and thy art
For all must part from thee is not the finish
But the beginning of thy love
Love is thy only victory if love is thy doing
Love is thy only save against the kipple
Then you must go widely in this lively mess
And place a daily measure of tenderness
Maybe then! Maybe
The water will little by little spit back
Each and every drop, maybe
We will meet again by the shadow of the red rock
Until that day, take care and well
And remember to sit still
It’s time, Greg. Ta-da. It’s time. Have a lovely night
You too, Tev. Did you forget
Them keys, again? Put the pen down.
And next time something sweeter, no?
You could try a lullaby, another simple tune.
Bring me my glass, let’s toast this for last
We are out already! Give a hug to Ni for us—
Rehearse. Rehearse. Jason and his ship.
Why do I always remember winter songs
In this hateful heat of summer?
V.
Come pick the flowers, young girl,
Come pick the flowers.
Seize their beauty before it folds,
Crush their breath between your fingers,
Lay them upon burials to bide the time,
Come pick the flowers, young girl,
Come pick the flowers.
Or perhaps gems you much prefer,
To dwell in subterranean style,
Should you not wish a hefty cell,
And riches beyond your heart’s desire?
After all, to catch stars is pointless play,
You cannot burn as long as they—
Don’t waste yourself under the sun,
But swallow all under your thumb,
Come pick the flowers, young girl,
Come pick the flowers.
(From Triptych)