437 Death poems

He found it strange at first. A new dimension. One he had never guessed. The fourth? The fifth? How could he tell, who’d only known the third? Something to do with eyesight, depth of field. Perspective quite beyond him. Everything flat or nearly flat. The vanishing point they’d tried to teach at school was out of sight and out of mind. A blank. Now, this diaphanous dimension—one with neither up nor down, nor east nor west, nor orienting star to give him north. Even his name had left him. Strayed like a dog. Yet he was bathed in some unearthly light, a delicate no-color that made his flesh transparent, see-through, a Saran-Wrap self. His body without substance and his mind with nothing to think about—although intact— was totally minus purpose. He must

“You knew who I was when I walked in the door. You thought that I was dead. Well, I am dead. A man can walk and talk and even breathe and still be dead.” Edmond O’Brien is perspiring and chewing up the scenery in my favorite film noir, D.O.A. I can’t stop watching, can’t stop relating. When I walked down Columbus to Endicott last night to pick up Tor’s new novel, I felt the eyes of every Puerto Rican teen, crackhead, yuppie couple focus on my cane and makeup. “You’re dead,” they seemed to say in chorus. Somewhere in a dark bar years ago, I picked up “luminous poisoning.” My eyes glowed as I sipped my drink. After that, there was no cure, no turning back. I had to find out what was gnawing at my gut. The hardest part’s not even the physical effects: stumbling like a drunk (Edmond O’Brien was one of Hollywood’s most active lushes) through Forties sets, alternating sweats and fevers, reptilian spots on face and scalp. It’s having to say goodbye like the scene where soundtrack violins go crazy as O’Brien gives his last embrace to his girlfriend-cum-Girl Friday, Paula, played by Pamela Britton. They’re filmdom’s least likely lovers—the squat and jowly alkie and the homely fundamentally talentless actress who would hit the height of her fame as the pillhead- acting landlady on My Favorite Martian fifteen years in the future. I don’t have fifteen years, and neither does Edmond O’Brien. He has just enough time to tell Paula how much he loves her, then to drive off in a convertible for the showdown with his killer. I’d like to have a showdown too, if I could figure out which pistol-packing brilliantined and ruthless villain in a hound’s-tooth overcoat took my life. Lust, addiction, being in the wrong place at the wrong time? That’s not the whole story. Absolute fidelity to the truth of what I felt, open to the moment, and in every case a kind of love: all of the above brought me to this tottering self-conscious state—pneumonia, emaciation, grisly cancer, no future, heart of gold, passionate engagement with a great B film, a glorious summer afternoon in which to pick up the ripest plum tomatoes of the year and prosciutto for the feast I’ll cook tonight for the man I love, phone calls from my friends and a walk to the park, ignoring stares, to clear my head. A day like any, like no other. Not so bad for the dead.

When death stands in your doorway, you must show no weakness. If he points at his watch, answer “in five minutes.” If he insists, murmur “just a minute.” When he bridles, whisper “half a minute,” 
“a second,” “half a sec,” “one moment.” You mustn’t look him in the eye. But don’t avert your gaze. Glance decisively at the bridge of the nose or the moist place right below 
the lips. If he unfolds a map, please don’t express a preference for the seashore or the mountains. Betray no longing or anxiety. You might tap the margin nonchalantly, if there is a margin. There’s an old superstition that death is a healer, he brings peace, 
escape from corruption. On the contrary: he is not a person, an animal, an insect, not even a pebble. Not even a name. Not an event. Not a whiff of night air. So why, ask yourself, does he fidget there, with that peevish “can’t we meet each other halfway” expression, in those absurd Goodwill clothes, baggy corduroy suit, pants and jacket the same color but different wales, so often folded the seams are white as chalk lines, fat two-tone white-and-beige golf shoes with cleats, nylon argyle socks, like someone’s idea of an encyclopedia salesman from the nineteen thirties? And why is the street behind him so fascinating, empty as a stage set, a few vans double-parked, a cat hiding under one, sometimes the flicker of the tip of a tail, sometimes the glint of the eye itself, 
voracious, ecstatic?

among the graves marked guest of houses         of wanderers scattered in light this afternoon is the same time every afternoon to pass through again myself tomorrow will seem the same as yesterday’s perfect hour to pass to name but everyone’s houses shuddering under flags remain between gestures all things in form in faces

Two days into the flood they appear, moored against a roof eave or bobbing caught in the crowns of drowned trees. Like fancy life boats from an adventurer’s flag ship, brass plating and grips, walnut sheen, scroll work, they slip through the understory on this brief, bad river. What have they discovered and come back to account? Or is this the beginning of the marvelous voyage and they plan never to return?

Nature which headlong into life doth throw us, With our feet forward to our grave doth bring us, What is less ours, than this our borrowed breath, We stumble into life, we go to death.

Pla ce bo, Who is there, who? Di le xi, Dame Margery; Fa, re, my, my, Wherfore and why, why? For the sowle of Philip Sparowe, That was late slayn at Carowe, Among the Nones Blake, For that swete soules sake, And for all sparowes soules, Set in our bederolles, Pater noster qui, With an Ave Mari, And with the corner of a Crede, The more shalbe your mede. Whan I remembre agayn How mi Philyp was slayn, Never halfe the payne Was betwene you twayne, Pyramus and Thesbe, As than befell to me: I wept and I wayled, The tearys downe hayled; But nothinge it avayled To call Phylyp agayne, Whom Gyb our cat hath slayne. Gib, I saye, our cat, Worrowyd her on that Which I loved best: It can not be exprest My sorowfull hevynesse, But all without redresse; For within that stounde, Halfe slumbrynge, in a swounde I fell downe to the grounde. Unneth I kest myne eyes Towarde the cloudy skyes: But whan I dyd beholde My sparow dead and colde, No creatuer but that wolde Have rewed upon me, To behold and se What hevynesse dyd me pange; Wherewith my handes I wrange, That my senaws cracked, As though I had ben racked, So payned and so strayned, That no lyfe wellnye remayned. I syghed and I sobbed, For that I was robbed Of my sparowes lyfe. O mayden, wydow, and wyfe, Of what estate ye be, Of hye or lowe degre, Great sorowe than ye myght se, And lerne to wepe at me! Such paynes dyd me frete, That myne hert dyd bete, My vysage pale and dead, Wanne, and blewe as lead; The panges of hatefull death Wellnye had stopped my breath. Heu, heu, me, That I am wo for the! Ad Dominum, cum tribularer, clamavi: Of God nothynge els crave I But Phyllypes soule to kepe From the marees deepe Of Acherontes well, That is a flode of hell; And from the great Pluto, The prynce of endles wo; And from foule Alecto, With vysage blacke and blo; And from Medusa, that mare, That lyke a fende doth stare; And from Megeras edders, For rufflynge of Phillips fethers, And from her fyry sparklynges, For burnynge of his wynges; And from the smokes sowre Of Proserpinas bowre; And from the dennes darke, Wher Cerberus doth barke, Whom Theseus dyd afraye, Whom Hercules dyd outraye, As famous poetes say; From that hell-hounde, That lyeth in cheynes bounde, With gastly hedes thre, To Jupyter pray we That Phyllyp preserved may be! Amen, say ye with me! Do mi nus, Helpe nowe, swete Jesus! Levavi oculos meos in montes: Wolde God I had Zenophontes, Or Socrates the wyse To shew me their devyse, Moderatly to take This sorrow that I make For Phylyp Sparowes sake! So fervently I shake, I fele my body quake; So urgently I am brought Into carefull thought. Like Andromach, Hectors wyfe, Was wery of her lyfe, Whan she had lost her joye, Noble Hector of Troye; In lyke maner also Encreaseth my dedly wo, For my sparowe is go. It was so prety a fole, It wold syt on a stole, And lerned after my scole For to kepe his cut, With, "Phyllyp, kepe your cut!" It had a velvet cap, And wold syt upon my lap, And seke after small wormes, And somtyme white bred crommes; And many tymes and ofte Betwene my brestes softe It wolde lye and rest; It was propre and prest. Somtyme he wolde gaspe Whan he sawe a waspe; A fly or a gnat, He wolde flye at that; And prytely he wold pant Whan he saw an ant; Lord, how he wolde pry After the butterfly! Lorde, how he wolde hop After the gressop! And whan I sayd, "Phyp! Phyp!" Than he wold lepe and skyp, And take me by the lyp. Alas, it wyll me slo, That Phillyp is gone me fro!

1. About the Dead Man and Rigor Mortis The dead man thinks his resolve has stiffened when the ground dries. Feeling the upward flow of moisture, the dead man thinks his resolve has stiffened. The dead man’s will, will be done. The dead man’s backbone stretches from rung to rung, from here to tomorrow, from a fabricated twinge to virtual agony. The dead man’s disks along his spine are like stepping-stones across a lake, the doctor told him “jelly doughnuts” when they ruptured, this is better. The dead man’s hernial groin is like a canvas bridge across a chasm, the doctor said “balloon” when they operated, this is better. The dead man’s toes are like sanded free forms and his heels are as smooth as the backs of new shoes, the doctor said “corns” when they ached, this is better. The dead man’s eyes are like tiny globes in water, continental geographies in microcosm, all the canyons are visible, now washed of random hairs that rooted, now free of the strangulated optics of retinal sense, this is better. All the dead man’s organs, his skin, muscles, tendons, arteries, veins, valves, networks, relays—the whole shebang hums like a quickly deserted hardware store. To the dead man, a head of cabbage is a forerunner of nutrients. The dead man’s garden foreshadows the day it is to be plowed under, agriculture being one of the ancient Roman methods for burying the Classics, the other was war. No one can argue with the dead man, he brooks no interference between the lightning and ground, his determination is legendary. 2. More About the Dead Man and Rigor Mortis You think it’s funny, the dead man being stiff? You think it’s an anatomically correct sexual joke? You think it’s easy, being petrified? You think it’s just one of those things, being turned to stone? Who do you think turns the dead man to stone anyway? Who do you think got the idea first? You think it’s got a future, this being dead? You think it’s in the cards, you think the thunder spoke? You think he thought he was dead, or thought he fancied he was dead, or imagined he could think himself dead, or really knew he was dead? You think he knew he knew? You think it was predetermined? You think when he stepped out of character he was different? What the hell, what do you think? You think it’s funny, the way the dead man is like lightning, going straight into the ground? You think it’s hilarious, comedy upstanding, crackers to make sense of?

1. About the Beginnings of the Dead Man When the dead man throws up, he thinks he sees his inner life. Seeing his vomit, he thinks he sees his inner life. Now he can pick himself apart, weigh the ingredients, research his makeup. He wants to study things outside himself if he can find them. Moving, the dead man makes the sound of bone on bone. He bends a knee that doesn’t wish to bend, he raises an arm that argues with a shoulder, he turns his head by throwing it wildly to the side. He envies the lobster the protective sleeves of its limbs. He believes the jellyfish has it easy, floating, letting everything pass through it. He would like to be a starfish, admired for its shape long after. Everything the dead man said, he now takes back. Not as a lively young man demonstrates sincerity or regret. A young dead man and an old dead man are two different things. A young dead man is oil, an old dead man is water. A young dead man is bread and butter, an old dead man is bread and water—it’s a difference in construction, also architecture. The dead man was there in the beginning: to the dead man, the sky is a crucible. In the dead man’s lifetime, the planet has changed from lava to ash to cement. But the dead man flops his feathers, he brings his wings up over his head and has them touch, he bends over with his beak to the floor, he folds and unfolds at the line where his armor creases. The dead man is open to change and has deep pockets. The dead man is the only one who will live forever. 2. More About the Beginnings of the Dead Man One day the dead man looked up into the crucible and saw the sun. The dead man in those days held the sky like a small globe, like a patchwork ball, like an ultramarine bowl. The dead man softened it, kneaded it, turned it and gave it volume. He thrust a hand deep into it and shaped it from the inside out. He blew into it and pulled it and stretched it until it became full- sized, a work of art created by a dead man. The excellence of it, the quality, its character, its fundamental nature, its raison d‘être, its “it” were all indebted to the dead man. The dead man is the flywheel of the spinning planet. The dead man thinks he can keep things the same by not moving. By not moving, the dead man maintains the status quo at the center of change. The dead man, by not moving, is an explorer: he follows his nose. When it’s not personal, not profound, he can make a new world anytime. The dead man is the future, was always the future, can never be the past. Like God, the dead man existed before the beginning, a time marked by galactic static. Now nothing remains of the first static that isn’t music, fashioned into melody by the accidents of interval. Now nothing more remains of silence that isn’t sound. The dead man has both feet in the past and his head in the clouds.

Like newlyweds, my parents slip out of their clothes. He puts aside the sweater I chose for him, she undoes her pearls. They rise up from their old ailments, their fears of falling, broken hips and other bad news. Now they dance barefoot in their living room, go bowling on a whim. They garden all day without pain, calling out like songbirds, come see the hollyhocks, they have grown so tall! Nights, they lie down like dolls and their sleepless eyes glide closed. They seem so eager for morning, I pray they will find each other again and again.