The Death under a pillow

There is a story in every poetry.

My cousin Heamus, 28, was diagnosed with leukaemia, final stage,

on September, 2005. The last five months of life he spent

on a hospital bed, putting up with the idea of dying;

during that time, he wrote me a letter monthly,

expressing thoughts about his own Death,

which occured on January, 2006, while

he was writing one more letter.

He never finished it.

He just started to be a man;

but what a man! I believe he never

knew turpitude or anger. He was a giver

and a lover. Moonstruck, as well. I just couldn’t

enter his hospital room. I stepped back from the door

so many times. I devoured his letters. As I was reading them

again and again, they were converting into lines. Which I wrote

down. It felt like I was living myself with the Death under my pillow.

There is a poetry in every story.
September: no known names

Dare to imagine: blood, flesh, bones,

so many needles in the stones

of whispers. The tiles bemoans,

the wheelchair lispers. To that attune

the screaking, yellow, heavy moon,

sleeping over a grim pontoon,

the dark and putrid, sapless water,

this doctor here, ready to slaughter

my corpse and leave shortly after…

 

I wish I were a song to fly,

to leave away without goodbye

and never ever come nearby!

For me to die, is there an aim?

I’d call on somebody, to blame!

I can’t remember any name…

Dare to imagine: Death’s the same.

October: no more dance

The winter occurs with furies, bedazzling the sphere.

After all the wonders I’ve lived in New Britain,

after all the poems I have never written,

after all the sunsets I have wept with fear

for arriving darkness…

Looming from the rear,

here she comes departing for another riot,

with the eyes of a swan, hungry, sick and quiet,

begging me to stay! Fibbing to my ears…

I begun being emptied of the slumbered years!

But don’t you stop, keep lying, sing, swing and laugh,

have a child with me, let me cop the plea! Although

time’s up, says cancer…

I could never dance again

with the glorious light from my bloated vein.

Soon, I shall switch my soul for a fist of earth.

To a dove of roses our love gives birth.

Take me in your arms one last time and crave.

Alas, I have to look for a gilded grave!

The moon went to sleep on a frozen wave.

November: no way back

’T is a butterfly effect,

or all just turns in ember.

Who brawls me this lullaby

and offers molten amber?

Death’s comin’: heavy steps

pacing over my traces.

I’ll be going on my way,

whitening all the faces.

Don’t cry, don’t call on me,

don’t beckon, don’t despair!

Memory’s a pain. We are

not anymore a pair.

A stone I’ll be, a blade,

a bird, a briar… Bygone

wishes having a parade –

but nothing I require.

No way back,

they say,

remember?

Enjoy

the moonshine

of November!

December: no longer a crime

For you I’m waiting every night,

till night is crawling out of sight.

Each morn for you I wait thus far,

till morn is playing the guitar.

It’s you I’m calling every night,

with wrath, with fear, with delight!

And every dawn I call on you!…

(Screams and tears added to.)

Hail! I’d like to linger a rhyme

to which we could dance cheek to cheek

while our bodies each other would seek!

To love you’s no longer a crime.

Embark the wherry and be merry!

I do not actually know Mary,

did I ever loved some Beth?

It’s only you, forever: Death!

What does the moon lie on the aerie?

January: not completed

You, Death, uninvited you came and nestled under my

I have acrid dew on my lips, the words are burning

pregnant words, ripe fruits with golden worms

My blood is a flower dispersing its seeds over

The swans can’t beat the mist and upon

sick night, dense dark. Am I affraid of

I wana reap a basket of stars from

imprisoned memories visiting

stepped on nails and stars

My wings are hurting

cancer got hungry

I did not wield

Full moon

Thanat

amor

Scott: groaning wood stump with eyes

That is a very freaky rare illness, Bob says. None of those long cells

will contract any longer, no motion, they don’t respond to any bells,

but imagine: he – Bob stages a lavish display – is aware! A wood

stump with eyes and groans: Scott, 44, The Rigid Man. Bob talks: he could

not move a muscle, but he – remember previous display? – knows

all what happens around. So here he dwells!

 

The shake mix – smells of roses – runs out the mouth, the jaws got stuck,

as they would be rocks in the ocean. That is hereditary – Bob is a hammock.

It doesn’t necessary imply the sons will inherit that, but it is only one out

of two children escaping that, keeps going Bob, starting to work out

the lower and the upper jaw, forcing them to join together, and they

eventually do, two broken pistons causing havoc.

 

There is one family here in Phoenix, one in France, and one in China – chat

goes further – as known by now, having that. There is of course no cure for that, Bob enunciates. The eyes have tears and they close. A flower has opened

the door, like wadding a bullet in a gun. Shut up! The girl has a diamond

instead of voice and let fall the flower on her father’s chest. And you are…

She’s probably fourteen and blossoms thereat.

 

Her eyes are like a journey in the pitch dark. She is a wayfaring rose, we reach hands. Fingers or rods of roses? The thorns must have left wounds on each

long cell. Shut up, Bob, leave now. A poet, you are? One of those! A poet rips

his soul for not having… What words are coming from her pulpy lips?

A cloud replenishes the sky. The tempest speaks near the adult care home.

Answer me this, she yells, preparing to impeach.

 

A poem is nothing but a giant of sand. Is there a God? Why would her parents

have a child? Abortion’s permitted, euthanasia’s declined! Are there warrants?

Everything’s meaningless. Enough: the mother in the rear, married widow,

sobs. Scott groans and groans and groans. A hoot breaks the window.

The helplessness, the loneliness, the sadness, the fear embrace the room:

fluid shivers or brittle tears come in torrents.

Jim: memoir of a mirror

Jim, 78, looking for something, stops, does not remember what he wanted.

Nailed he stands in front of the mirror, big battlemented mirror, wasted

by images: it could fit a sunset over Sedona – the town where he haunted

all life, whose streets he easily draws in his impaired memory. Painted

 

bunting of Sedona’s red rock filling the mirror, and the memory maybe.

But not many other things left. Trying to reach his eyes in the herby

mirror, Jim lifts the head: that’s a real adventure. His memory is a booby

hatch, still Mr. Parkinson plays the role of a reluctant hero or of a zombie,

 

as he climbed on Jim’s back years ago and wouldn’t change position.

Two minutes later, Jim finally reaches his own eyes. With some caution,

Jim smiles to himself: happy to see a familiar face? There is a tension.

Whose eyes are these, he might have asked. A name had come from ocean

 

of names. Nailed he stands there, eye in eye, lingering upon those tremendous blue eyes. Tears would come out, if available. Did the old guy feel the anxious

second? Time had no meaning anymore, the meaning ends in the judas

hole through which you could spy Death, and have an illustrating preface

 

of what shall come. Still, Jim couldn’t even tell day from night, the lights on

all the time and the curtains covering the windows or perhaps, jittery python,

the helplessness: the loneliness, the illness, the sadness… How far is Tucson?

Jim notices the picture in a corner of the mirror – with his daughter thereon.

 

At the crest of the sight, some words Jim hears, spoken by a little lady,

jumping from the embalmed memory, her daughter when a kid: – Howdy!

Why did you leave the mirror when you moved? You made it prettier, Daddy.

Jim’s eyes divorce its look and close. That had been all – eye candy.

Intro: stepping on nails and stars

They were all gone. The light was calm.

The timepiece bashed with hate.

‘T was too early. Or… so late?

Nails bleeding in the palm.

Few stars had jostled with a nudge

to hear their shadows spread on mould.

It was so hush. So cold.

Nails ready to adjudge

a sorrow, a sigh. Thorns whisking by.

The bells of rustling rumors ring.

Tears felt to the ground and spring.

Nails all alone detach from sky,

and stars shall sing: