When to you the world seems harsh
and you are numbed
by its ice cold reception
when time spoon feeds each second
into the mouth of every day
yet life can´t find a moment
to fit you in for an appointment
and still you persevere
a jaded spirit all forlorn
with thoughts like blackest treacle
sifting slowly through your mind
as you feast on dark fantasies
lurking in decay
each morbid crumb a meal for you
while all you really want
is to disappear unnoticed
without affecting other souls
(as if…)
still…
how noble such a thought
how benevolent a notion
meanwhile
thinking on…….thinking off
thinking how the world would be
had you never breathed nor existed at all
but your ego – in a frenzy
won´t hear of such estrangements
it has grand designs
on more elaborate arrangements
eulogies and requiems
a mass of mourning beauty
aisles replete with the blackest of grieving fashion…
While elsewhere at a graveyard in your mind…
Bloodshot eyes
of distraught angels
shed endless tears
weeping at your open grave
celebrating death
in divine proportions.
But of course
by all means indulge yourself
be my guest
spin the wheel
crash into that wall
become a momentary phoenix
a burning fireball
rising high into the air
above the drama that unfolds.
And while you do yourself away
inside a bloody crumpled mess
I´ll re-imagine your last moments
with refinement and finesse
I shall also write your epitaph
to tell it like it is –
Killed instantly
snuffed out
without a shadow
of a doubt
.
I´ll even stand upon the pulpit
pausing for a moment
to compose
to catch my breath
to re-imagine what I see
I´ll stare into the tired old church
at the paltry gathering
only to gaze upon
a magnificent basilica
packed to the gills
and where old widows
who never really knew you
sit in raincoats on their pews
wrapped in head scarves and rosary beads
instead I´ll see before me
women of good standing
dressed in fine fabrics
clearly stunned by the loss
weeping little diamonds
from their red rimmed eyes
into silk handkerchiefs..
borrowed from their strong and silent men
and I shall tell them all…
“He executed his plans
unbeknownst
to those around him
who loved him so
and had he left a note
I think it might have read
like this”
___
Had I been a lesser thing
or unbecame the man I was
had nature reassigned me
to possess a summer breeze
I´d be the patterns on the meadow
or the air within the mist at dusk
a wisp above the land
and not the cause of all this grief.
Alas my friends
it´s all just fodder for the poet
a fantasy
a whim.
___
This indeed I´d do for you
my melancholy friend
though death could never fathom
nor witness such an end.
© 2012 Peter Smallwood