A Final Death Wish, etc.
By
Will H. Blackwell, Jr.
A Final Death Wish
From the memory bed where we once lay as lovers,
your death-rattles crawl up the solemn walls—like
lines of rasping insects discovering, does
reward await, or does death, simply, call?
I recall your lissome flesh—your lust for life.
You gave me all—both the good and bad in you.
Fast-forward to this time of final strife;
I will still do for you all that I can do.
I behold you now—a tragic, shrunken thing.
Yet rigid flesh cannot restrict your soul.
Your life, though, thinning to a string—I ask,
“Is there some wish that you have left untold?”
I lean near, and hear you brokenly say,
“Your soul is mine; come die with me this day.”
Cremation Shapes
Forms, in sandy drought,
etched upon imagined beach,
prey to whims of burning tide.
Tell myself the truth?
Are these merely harmless lies
that change with particles blown?
Dual swirls of dust—ears?
Sloped node—shaping of a nose?
Two, small, leather straps—eyes that
saw me with great love?
Ellipsis, drawn in powder--
mouth that sweetly spoke my name?
Harsh fire—leveled most,
not all. Do I hear you call--
still see you, as you once were?
Your morphology--
does it in some way endure
as I spread your ashes now?
Touching these remains
you first seem cold, even gone,
too long sequestered, alone.
Division of parts,
perhaps, now, too finely done.
May entropy be undone?
Crema: shows but hints.
Metal Plaque: just name, death age.
Can your shape yet resurrect?
Earth’s sunlit surface--
new home—freedom—no more pain.
Meld into its warm return.
The urn, sealed too long,
better if left open now.
Your visage soon restoring.
Your spirit—joining
the earth-cast that welcomes you--
reaches out to all who care.
Friends visit, aware,
sense renewal of being,
receive, here, your gift of soul.
Remembrance? Secure!
Your image, whole, persisting--
safely held, in many minds.
Dreams That Follow Death
Since your death, why are you so different in my dreams? I used to love it
when you soothed my restless, seeking thoughts in sleep, with your calm
yet vital visage—your warm, essential presence. So many times, you
rescued me from chilling images arising in the depths of REM.
But I never see you now as you were then, but as something else—something
less, or frighteningly more. You are altered now, changed within my slumber
to a ghostly thing—strange and unforgiving—sometimes plundering within
my brain, rending subconscious thought asunder, till I wake in muffled cry.
At times, I think I can still hold you; but you slip away again, and yet again.
You are wild now, never tame. The realization gradually sets in, the resignation
that you will never be the same. You pull suddenly away, as if captured by
some arcane hand—playing a nefarious, nocturnal game. It can even seem as if
you are a hologram of your former being—my grasping hands simply passing
through—no longer enough substance, sustaining, to bring you close once more.
All has become so very wrong. You were kindly once; but you are wintry now--
anxious, even devious—your lovely smile gone from your once beckoning face.
What is the meaning of this new-found anger, your seeming wish to widen
space? You do not reach out. Our eyes no longer engage—your gaze suddenly
shifting like an animal confined, as if by trappings of an unseen a cage.
In this limbo of a paradox, you seem distant now—Though still near, you are
also far away. Where is it you wish to be, if no longer here with me? It is
impossible to tell, perhaps resonating less of heaven and more of hell. Or do I
just lack the vision to see—the wisdom to, at last, set you free? Is this, in truth,
a deepening fault of mine—an aberration of my wishful, troubled mind--
proceeding now alone in time—and no fault of yours at all, in your new,
if liminal, home? I know my greedy sleep should soon release you, let you
freely roam—until your peace is somewhere, somehow, finally found.
I cope with steady daylight well enough, but night descends as an erratic fiend—an
angling assassin of my soul, and yours. I understand I must surrender my dream—my
selfish, subconscious desire—to make you mine again, by any means. I must abandon
this ruthless wish in a final act of love—a most difficult gift, but all I have left to offer.
Will H. Blackwell Jr. is an emeritus professor of botany, retired in Columbia, South Carolina. His poetry, short fiction, or literary essays have been published in: Aphelion, Black Petals, Brilliant Flash Fiction, The Drabble, Outposts of Beyond, Poem, Scifaikuest, Shelter of Daylight, Slant, Trembling with Fear, 365 Tomorrows, and Minimalism: A Handbook of Minimalist Genre Poetic Forms.
By
Will H. Blackwell, Jr.
A Final Death Wish
From the memory bed where we once lay as lovers,
your death-rattles crawl up the solemn walls—like
lines of rasping insects discovering, does
reward await, or does death, simply, call?
I recall your lissome flesh—your lust for life.
You gave me all—both the good and bad in you.
Fast-forward to this time of final strife;
I will still do for you all that I can do.
I behold you now—a tragic, shrunken thing.
Yet rigid flesh cannot restrict your soul.
Your life, though, thinning to a string—I ask,
“Is there some wish that you have left untold?”
I lean near, and hear you brokenly say,
“Your soul is mine; come die with me this day.”
Cremation Shapes
Forms, in sandy drought,
etched upon imagined beach,
prey to whims of burning tide.
Tell myself the truth?
Are these merely harmless lies
that change with particles blown?
Dual swirls of dust—ears?
Sloped node—shaping of a nose?
Two, small, leather straps—eyes that
saw me with great love?
Ellipsis, drawn in powder--
mouth that sweetly spoke my name?
Harsh fire—leveled most,
not all. Do I hear you call--
still see you, as you once were?
Your morphology--
does it in some way endure
as I spread your ashes now?
Touching these remains
you first seem cold, even gone,
too long sequestered, alone.
Division of parts,
perhaps, now, too finely done.
May entropy be undone?
Crema: shows but hints.
Metal Plaque: just name, death age.
Can your shape yet resurrect?
Earth’s sunlit surface--
new home—freedom—no more pain.
Meld into its warm return.
The urn, sealed too long,
better if left open now.
Your visage soon restoring.
Your spirit—joining
the earth-cast that welcomes you--
reaches out to all who care.
Friends visit, aware,
sense renewal of being,
receive, here, your gift of soul.
Remembrance? Secure!
Your image, whole, persisting--
safely held, in many minds.
Dreams That Follow Death
Since your death, why are you so different in my dreams? I used to love it
when you soothed my restless, seeking thoughts in sleep, with your calm
yet vital visage—your warm, essential presence. So many times, you
rescued me from chilling images arising in the depths of REM.
But I never see you now as you were then, but as something else—something
less, or frighteningly more. You are altered now, changed within my slumber
to a ghostly thing—strange and unforgiving—sometimes plundering within
my brain, rending subconscious thought asunder, till I wake in muffled cry.
At times, I think I can still hold you; but you slip away again, and yet again.
You are wild now, never tame. The realization gradually sets in, the resignation
that you will never be the same. You pull suddenly away, as if captured by
some arcane hand—playing a nefarious, nocturnal game. It can even seem as if
you are a hologram of your former being—my grasping hands simply passing
through—no longer enough substance, sustaining, to bring you close once more.
All has become so very wrong. You were kindly once; but you are wintry now--
anxious, even devious—your lovely smile gone from your once beckoning face.
What is the meaning of this new-found anger, your seeming wish to widen
space? You do not reach out. Our eyes no longer engage—your gaze suddenly
shifting like an animal confined, as if by trappings of an unseen a cage.
In this limbo of a paradox, you seem distant now—Though still near, you are
also far away. Where is it you wish to be, if no longer here with me? It is
impossible to tell, perhaps resonating less of heaven and more of hell. Or do I
just lack the vision to see—the wisdom to, at last, set you free? Is this, in truth,
a deepening fault of mine—an aberration of my wishful, troubled mind--
proceeding now alone in time—and no fault of yours at all, in your new,
if liminal, home? I know my greedy sleep should soon release you, let you
freely roam—until your peace is somewhere, somehow, finally found.
I cope with steady daylight well enough, but night descends as an erratic fiend—an
angling assassin of my soul, and yours. I understand I must surrender my dream—my
selfish, subconscious desire—to make you mine again, by any means. I must abandon
this ruthless wish in a final act of love—a most difficult gift, but all I have left to offer.
Will H. Blackwell Jr. is an emeritus professor of botany, retired in Columbia, South Carolina. His poetry, short fiction, or literary essays have been published in: Aphelion, Black Petals, Brilliant Flash Fiction, The Drabble, Outposts of Beyond, Poem, Scifaikuest, Shelter of Daylight, Slant, Trembling with Fear, 365 Tomorrows, and Minimalism: A Handbook of Minimalist Genre Poetic Forms.
