DEATH PASSED ME ONCE (Poetry by dlsiluk)

Index

New Poems on Death (8-2007)
Death Returns
Death: Roots of the Earth
The Honored Ones
Dialogue with the Devil
Selected for Death
Death Passed Me Once
The Rocks (with notes)


New Poems on Death

Death Returns

Death returns: it found no resting place;
I saw it in flight, last night over the Sierras;
beneath the last sparks of twilight—!
The condor’s wings covered death’s decent;
and glides now through the air in peace!
Yet death’s tail-shadow leaves at dawn, to
return at dusk, blue-bellied full—as
if it has swallowed a whale (once again).
The condor, the condor, likened to a fly in a web
death finds no rest, only new flesh, new flesh!

No: 1949 8-27-2007



Death:
The Roots of the Earth

Death has a way of saying Hello, when it means Goodbye! We human beings on earth’s surface never really disappear—only transform.

From the moment of death the body will change, you can’t
hear it, it simply gets foggy—becoming the roots of the earth.

No: 1950 8-27-2007





The Honored Ones

How mysterious to be born a human being
—and then to die as one!
To be able to wash off those old fleshy garments
of bark and milky-clay…!
We are the honored ones—(you know)
given to a whole world system—:
one hand reaching to heaven the other to hell.
Those who have not been born yet:
man and beast are not so far apart
(and the second, very hard to please).

No: 1951 8-27-2007










Dialogue with the Devil



“I’ll make a pack with you,” said He to me (the Devil),
“I have detested you long enough. I first saw you as
a child—then when you were old enough to make friends
I saw you again…. It was you who worshiped my kinds
of sins—then you broke away, but now is the time to start
carving new adventures. I have left one sap and root for
you—let there be commerce between us?”

I said back to Him, “Dark eyed, ivory scandaled thief, there
is none like thee, among heaven, earth or hell; none with
such swift feet, or tongue—eyes or hears, none like thee,
dark as midnight are your sins, —face of a death’s seabed.”

No: 1954, 8-28-2007







Selected for Death

“No, no! Go from me—!” I left death lately in her sheath
—oh! Dim it was, for she surrounded me.
Thin, are her arms, yet such a grip—they bound me,
immoveable, and left me…cloaked, as in a web,
a cocoon—subtle and swift she was, like magic, in her
binding.
“No, no! I cried, “go from me, I have still your taste—
your scent, your soot, your aye—halt!”
(But she wouldn’t listen.)

No: 1952 8-28-2007




Death Passed Me Once
(1993)


This man knew the secrets of death
(he cast them over my head).
No man could know such things, unless
he was part of it.
And now he’s gone, he up and left—
(just like that…).
I called out: “Are you near?” and he did
not answer back.
Then at the end of my bed I saw—why!
There stood in my hospital room, the
eyes and shoulders of a great being:
He did not speak, —he simple watched
over me.

No: 1953 8-28-2007




The Rocks
(Rapturous poetry)

Friend, please tell me what is wrong with me?
Or is it perhaps the world?
For I told myself, it could be either way!

I gave up drinking, smoking and gambling,
and I never swore, but then I started to.

So I prayed on that, and went after women
instead, and became compulsively attracted.

I went and got married to give up women
and just have one, and I started up swearing again.

I worked hard at trying to figure myself out,
pushing aside pride, greed, lust, envy and gout!

And every time I take my inventory, I find one
more issue, that had been hidden under a rock!

“Listen up Friend, there’s only been one
who has ever been able to kick over those rocks
and find nothing of value to talk about…!”


No: 1955 8-29-2007 In this poem I try to put what I call eccentric energy into its rebellious branches; a tinge of spirituality; the ego and the body play a role here, and how a man may try to prepare himself for death, trying to subdue his impulsive nature, be it sexual, or excessive energy in other so called, taboo areas: acted out and un-acted out desires. The rocks, or rock, are ones invitation to look under it, for there is where you will find your problem, the situation is always on top, and thus the problem has to be under the rock. This is an old Hindu style form of poetry.