Death Waits

Shining Death's claws

with our suffering

well
not so much suffering

more of a transfixed trembling

as we shiver in Death's embrace

You see
he was walking along

this evening path

sky darkening

his thoughts surrendering

under the weight of an unnameable despair

And there

at the moment he thought 

he'd prefer not to go on

But then
he thinks

I'll go on

Then, no
I can't go on
Yes
I guess
I'll just go on

And asking himself, 

how do YOU really feel about it all?

as if he were a stranger on a train

suddenly in the crosshairs 

of an idiot's attention

this idiot not sitting across from him

in the compartment

but uncomfortably sitting
inside of him

I don't have any opinion
about how I FEEL

one way or the other
he replies

I simply endure
Do my time
Keep my head down

He goes on

It's like I was born chained to a dead tree

in the middle of a Waste Land

Over the years

the Birds of Appetite

have gathered in bare branches above
rustle of black wing
I have endured under
the patient gaze of their hunger

always feeling just barely alive

longing for the world

beyond the limits of my chain

But I'm resigned 

resigned without resentment

to continue to endure

knowing one thing

to look just enough alive 

to keep the Birds at bay

occasionally twitch the exhausted hand

now and then open the tired eye

keep the black wings from whispering

After having heard this monologue

The Idiot asks:

Why don't you ask Death in?

Stand upon the threshold

where pain turns to stone

and kindly offer entrance?

As he think about this

it is as if a coat slides off a hanger
skin slips from bones

And Death is there before him

Implacable

A statue sculpted from Nothingness

Brutal as a mountain 

slamming suddenly down
upon the world

His terminal fear gives Death 

claws that pierce his flesh 

crucifying him upon his bones

And so here I am now
he thinks
with this Idiot Inner Self 

who somehow convinced me to 

Ask Death in

And here Death is

And while I'm not dead

I certainly wish I could just go back 

back to the good times

when it was just me 

the tree and the chain

branches full of birds 

waiting to devour me

But Death waits
and waits and waits

he amuses himself
on the cross of his bones

it's like one of those moments

in a conversation at dinner

when someone

is talking 

and then

at the critical moment of 

saying
what you can never forget...

they take a bite of food

watching while you hang

on the hook

waiting for them to finish 

that damned sentence

Death waits like this

infecting every present moment 

And the Idiot continues his questions:

Aren't you sick of this sack of skin?

Of having to zip up the weary body over the skeleton every morning?

Of slipping the same old face over your skull?

Of going through the day exposing your broken teeth
in the tortured rictus of a smile?

Of just going through the same tired routine

Saying the same tired phrases, jokes, prayers,
poems

And thinking the same tired thoughts

THESE SAME TIRED THOUGHTS

This Idiot Inner Self
cross examines like a

Grand Inquisitor:

Is it true or is it not true

that you want to step out of your skin

that you long to be a skeleton 

in a Bone filled World

your skull singing with the wind

white bones clacking cracking

burning with the blue light of the stars

dancing in the Burning Ring of Time

hourglass drum flame river flowing

following the trail of enormous bones

that mark the Path of the Fugitive Gods

Marking the Way Out of this World?

And for the first time
since he has been thinking
these same tired thoughts

he looks into the eyes of his Inquisitor

Of course,
he knows I know he knows

he has been my accomplice all along

and like a guilty thing

I nod

And Life begins again

and Death waits
and waits and waits