In all, honesty

 

My Mom and Dad were flawed and frail,

And though they did the best they could,

They were mortal and limped with feet of clay,

And could only do me so much good.

 

At the pool, I watched them climb the ladder,

Well aware what they headed toward-

But then they jumped, and it was me up there,

In abject terror, on the diving board.

 

There was a lifeguard at that pool,

A blissfully brainless and brawny lad,

Who had no idea what terror was-

He hadn’t lost his Mom or Dad.

 

In the shade, there sat a grizzled gent,

Who’d lingered long upon this earth-

Old men become philosophers

Or stay the fools they were at birth.

 

I asked him if he feared his death,

If it was more than he could bear-

He looked back at me vacantly-

The man he once was wasn’t there.

 

I decided I would find a treatise

To help me through my hours of need-

Great minds had surely pondered death-

Perhaps I simply had to read.

 

So I sat down all fresh and eager,

And immersed myself in Epictetus-

But all his dreary stoicism

Hardly tries to halfway meet us.

 

These imperturbable Greeks and Romans-

How they preach and how they prattle!

(Plus, I bet that pompous Emp’ror Marcus

Crapped his fancy pants in battle.)

 

Blasé, indiff’rent resignation

Is not a goal to set your sights on-

The only remedy for late night terrors

Is to leave the radio and lights on.

 

There was but one thing in my readings

That stayed with me when I was done:

“Don’t gaze too long upon your death,

As you would not upon the sun.”

 

I tried to see if God could help me

Face down my mortality-

I soon found out blind faith demands

One disavow reality.

 

Don’t waste your time on metaphysics,

Or soon to be mythologies-

Admit that you are scared as shit,

And offer no apologies.

 

And when a fool assures you that

They’re fine with death, or “above desire”,

Resist your primal urge to blurt out,

‘LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE!”

 

Leave them to their bookish fancies,

Leave them grov’ling on their knees-

Anyone who clutches at lies like life rafts

Will drown without their fantasies.

 

And yes, there’s a terrible price to pay,

For it’s like one has swallowed a red-hot knife-

But the dividend of living without illusions

Is the dignity which accrues to an honest life.

 

 

In nomine, nihil

 

We higher mammals have our names,

In a dangerous world we seem to need them-

But they clip our wings with them at birth

When they teach us to adopt and heed them.

 

Names make us think we stay the same

From the womb’s first sounds to our deathbed dirges,

But in the infinite flux of matter and spirit,

When a condition arises, a new self emerges.

 

What a shame we haven’t countless names

For each new self that we become-

(Or if, instead, we’d none at all,

Which would certainly be less troublesome!)

 

You weren’t once another being,

A leaf or stalk or Joan of Arc-

You were everything and everywhere,

Your home is chaos, deep and dark.

 

We often have no name in dreams,

That primitive, preverbal place-

(In mirrored halls of bliss and horror,

We glimpse our own primeval face.)

 

All the illusions of time and space

Collude so we cannot discern

That we’re only the dances of countless waves

In the ocean, to which they all return.

 

It’s likely, at your eulogy,

They’ll say your name-loud, clear, and often,

But you were no more that silly name

Than you’ll be that thing inside the coffin.

 

We violate your cosmic vastness

When we shrink you down to fit a frame-

We shut you up in an airless tomb

Each time we call you by your given name.

 

 

In the chaste gray world

 

In the chaste gray world of the cold gaunt child,

Hung from the hook where the skin was spun,

Filled with the dusty breath of moths

And stained in mist by a haunted sun,

 

His unfettered spirit would soar up in wonder,

In splendor of slumber though he was within

The room of the woman he clearly remembered

As spindly and scowling while spinning her skin.

 

She would rise from her work to pass cruelly through curtains

And grab by the throat without pity the one

Who escaped all the blows that now rained down upon him

By leaving his body until she was done.

 

But do not despair, my vicarious readers,

These disasters just lasted the length of his youth-

A kid who encounters the kindness of strangers

Can blossom and bloom once he stumbles on truth.

 

The delicate scent of the forest engulfed him,

An intricate puzzle began to unfold-

Assured of survival, he wandered the landscape,

A confident boy needn’t do what he’s told.

 

Soon came the mindless and whole-hungry madness,

The quivering cravings of limbs set on fire

By sweaty and sweltering sensuous bodies

Whose whispering mouths breathed the flames of desire.

 

Setting his eggs in a breakable basket,

A nexus of ecstasy feasting on flesh,

He fin’lly felt free from his personal prison,

Drunk with the dream that two souls would now mesh.

 

Such are the foolish delusions of children

Who think other people can undo their past-

They finally discover no stranger or lover

Can stitch up their wounds in a way that can last.

 

Don’t resign him to ruin quite yet, my dear readers,

For broken hearts mend and survivors survive-

He laced up his boots as he eyed the horizon

And assumed ‘twas his fortune to go forth and thrive.

 

Modestly gifted, he’d nurtured through childhood

Lascivious music and purplish prose-

Mysterious truths that now soothed him and helped him

Escape into ether when troubles arose.

 

Now on good terms with life, he smacked sharp into death,

Which is always the moment when childhood ends-

One then grieves or goes numb, which is not up to you,

For it’s fate that determines if what’s left transcends

 

What both nature and nurture have given and taken,

Whether you had strong roots or can grow them anew-

His body and mind now began to grow anxious,

As the numbness subsided, he finally knew

 

That he’d have to do battle with things long forgotten,

With things he’d suppressed long before he’d turned five-

With the love and the passion, the hurt and the rage,

All the terror and dread that he’d buried alive...

 

If he triumphed or failed, I for one cannot say,

It matters not much or at all either way-

Whether dances or dirges began then to play,

The world will still wake up brand new ev’ry day.

 

 

New Years Restitutions

 

Time tracks you down

with scythes and whispers

like a frightened hare

through the moors

into the abandoned house

 

Ruined boys

chase you up rotting stairs

to the cavernous attic

where cadaverous birds

mutter like rusted scissors

 

Bruised bearers

with stumps for thumbs

paste the stopped clocks

with blasted wax

to the domed night sky

 

In the country of now

masters pick clean

the wombs of sleeping maidens

stuff full the pockets

of lonely eunuchs

crisscross the earth

with forks and pitch

 

Leave the wet lights on in the cottage kitchen

Clutch the twilit seasons with your sagging flesh

 

The din of distant trains

tunnels through tumescent fog

heralding spectral shafts of light

which most feared

must follow

Beneath the basement floorboards

Father Time sips lye

patiently counting worms

and men of straw

with bony fingers

 

 

Oh, the Places You’ll

(probably never, because you’d feel too guilty) Go!

 

Death isn’t kind, and they’ll be no returning,

No matter your wishes, or how deep your yearning,

Go down to the beach now, and look at the sea-

For it’s there that what’s most of what’s you will soon be!

 

Now that you’re born, you are fated to die,

There just isn’t a God for you up in the sky.

Any honest assessment just serves to confirm

You’re a slab of raw meat, a mere treat for a worm.

 

Dr. Suess asked his wife, “Am I dead yet?” one night,

How amazing he managed to keep things so light!

Though feigning acceptance, he knew what WE do-

That he wouldn’t be dying If He Ran the Zoo,

(Plus there’d be no more suffering for other folks, too).

 

There’ll be nothing one day, not a piece of papyrus

To record our ascent from some wet slime or virus,

Those idiot microbes with their will to exist

Left us holding the ball-we’ve a right to be pissed!

 

(It’s a dark place to go, although maybe you’ve been to it-

But hey, what the hell, let’s be brave and dive into it!)

 

You’re a mouth and a tube leading to your posterior,

You’re primordial ooze, you’re bipedal bacteria.

It’s the consensus of physicists, so I am told

That the cosmos will die a slow death of a cold.

If God does play dice, well, the dice have been rolled!

(If you’re lucky, you’ll live to grow sick and grow old.)

The earth will, one day, be consumed by the sun,

(Though we won’t be on hand then, to witness the fun.)

 

It’s all written in spacetime, that huge block of feces,

Your thoughts and your destiny, genus and species,

(As well as the time when that destiny ceases).

 

Species of primates don’t last all that long-

How much can it matter what’s right and what’s wrong?

Our world will be Venus in two hundred years-

Call up some hookers and order some beers!

Soon there’ll be brutal and long resource wars-

Burn down the Vatican, pass out the s’mores!

Stay drunk and amused, it will go that much faster

(Our incipient, dire, existential disaster).

Unless all these cancers go into remission,

Depravity’s a respectable philosophical position!

 

A bunch of dumb primates, so full of bravado

That “Homo Assholens” should be their new motto.

But don’t be a cynic, that job’s ocupado,

Don’t make a big fuss or go melodramato.

You may say tomato, I may say tomahto-

The whole thing’s called off soon-let’s go and get blotto!

 

Go watch some T.V. now you’ve forsworn all hope,

Try not to despair and make sure not to mope,

Away with the ars’nic, away with the rope,

And pay no attention to that dumb horoscope.

Whether you ask a Rabbi, petition the Pope,

Question a great saint or old misanthrope:

“DOES LIFE HAVE A MEANING?!”

 

The answer is:

“Nope”.

(If there was a creator, He was clearly a dope.)

 

Go forth now and sin!

(It’s the best way to cope.)

 

 

 

Return to DM 75 Menu