Sick Okie (fixin’ t’ die)

her eyes        wide        and  bright

-- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

Suzanne! Suzanne!

We loved each other

   tenderly,

and our fondness encreased

  with age.

-- Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield  (1766)

Feu le roi (mort assassiné, 1934)

the   strange, soft   sound

of a whole      city

                       weeping …

[From: Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), p. 616]

Requiescat illa in pace

She passed to her final sleep   in silent dignity

-- Hamlin Garland, A Son of the Middle Border (1917)

Blindman’s Ballad

Madame Life's a tart in bloom;

Death's her pimp upon the stair;

she may ask you to her room;

he'll be waiting while you're there.

She may see you as a friend;

you may gyp him once or twice;

but he'll get you in the end;

and you'll have to pay her price.

After it's all said and done;

after laughter, songs, and prayers;

Death takes everything you've won;

and kicks you down the funny stairs.

[ -- a guest contribution from our friend,

the Blind Bard of Indiana]

Jack Reed’s deathbed

Moscow, 1920:

In the early hours of October 17,

the heart stopped beating,   the body grew still,

and nothing     became all.

[Robert Rosenstone, Romantic Revolutionary: a biography of John Reed (1990), p. 382]

Zora Neale Hurston meets the Rootabaga Stories

Death,

that strange being

with the huge square toes,

who lived       way in the West.

[from:  Their Eyes were Watching God (1937)]

Eternity in Autumn

seest thou

(ambergolden)

something whirling

from off the tree?

(!)

‘Tis Larry:

Larry the Leaf.

Larry is in the grip of gravity,

whirling to earth.

flashing now grandly

in the twilit  sunlight

dizzily dreaming

of when he was green …

           ~

Soon,  he(it) settles,

on/(in) a bank of    softly-fallen, softened

(Lisa & Lennie & Lea  the Leaf)

melding to mulch

sans name  &  sans dream …

…  ………

Rest in peace,  little leaflet  leaf:

rest in sweetsome /   dreamlesssleepy   / sleep ……….

Full Moon

I grow old;  I decline, I wane;

the seer, the yellow --

the amber,  --the russet,   -- the burnt-umber leaf.

Yet today -- Vim-filled and vital, and full of sap!

And not needing a nap!!

And this evening,

taking out the recyclables -- lo !

A full moon!

No wonder.

Yet one more unicorn

might I corral,

or ere  I yield  my shield…

عزرائيل

"It is the evening of the day"

(words of a now-elderly philosopher)

Near the sunlit deck, towards sunset,

a butterfly  lands  on a leaf.

And I picture the Visitor

come set down beside me,

and give me a nod,

“It’s time.”

Smiling, I rise

and go with him.

[After dark, in the study, 

I was frightened  by a flying shadow,

which turned out to be a moth --

Michael versus Samael.]

[[ Foreshadowing  here. ]]

Memento Mori

Im Grunde glaubt niemand an seinen eigenen Tod; oder, was dasselbe ist: im Unbewußten sei jeder von uns von seiner Unsterblichkeit überzeugt.

-- Dr. S. Freud

Las ich auf der Sonnenuhr die Worte:

Jede Stunde schmerzt;  die letzte  tötet.

-- F. G. Jünger

‘Tis often asserted, by those psycho-philosophically minded, 

that,  while we   all of us   pay lip-service, pro-forma, du bout des lèvres,

to the proposition that All Men Are Mortal

(that major premise which -- Socrates being a man -- doomed Socrates)

yet we   none of us, individually,

can imagine our own.

We-elll I’m here t’ tell ya, that that is not the case, at least for this philosopher.

I can quite clearly visualize  the circumstances of my own personal hypothetical death.

I shall die (if I ever do die), in precisely one of exactly three potential ways:

(1)  Getting run over by a pie-truck.

(2) Falling down a manhole (carelessly left uncovered).

(3) Getting bonked on the noggin by an anvil  plummeting from an upper floor of a skyscraper.

So long as I stay away from these, I should be safe.
 

*

Für psychologisch tiefgreifende Krimis,

in pikanter amerikanischer Mundart,

und christlich gesinnt,

klicken Sie bitte hier:

http://www.linguasacrapublishing.com/justice.html

*

"O Death" (Ralph Stanley)
"O-oh Death -- won't you spairrr me over till another year."

Evening on a Balcony at Woods-Edge

Reading… the light fading…

but a breeze has sprung up;  I cannot bear to go back inside.

And so shall sit, till the text fades,

and each bird returns  to its nest  for the night.

Unto Thee I commend my spirit.

Lord, I stand braced for Thy breeze.

[Postscript:

 I wrote that yesterday evening.  And later, in the leaden, deadened waste-hours in the armpit of night, had  apparently  some sort of cardiogenic event. 
When such things actually happen, it is often nothing like the vespertine calm of awaiting quietus, depicted in the poem.  Turns out I couldn't even recite any traditional set-text prayers -- more like just, "God, get me outa this."  You’re sick and shivering and you feel like hell.

Oh well.]

Thoughts on Aging

An apple a day   keeps the sexton away.

[More such musings here:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2012/05/evening-on-balcony-at-woods-edge.html ]