The Plague,

A million moment

Billions thought ghost

Hovering over us

Shadowing us

IN us

Haunting our every waking moment.

We go to bed thinking of it

Living it 

Feeling it laughing at us with it’s sickness and death.

For a few hours of restless sleep we find some respite

Then waking

Rising, 

Dressing,

That monstrous ghost is part of what we dress ourselves with

Haunting us

Jeering at us

Maddening us to be for some there worst

For others,

There best,

It all depends upon how each of us faces ghosts in life

And ghosts,

In facing … Death. 

My parents told me that I was near death from spinal meningitis at 18 months. Nearly died from it. Pulled through somehow. 

Near death crap. 

I fell through the ice of a pond far from where anyone could have seen me or helped me. I have no idea how I got out. 

Near death crap.

Drunk, I jumped off a cliff into darkness assuming but not knowing if there was water below and

Not knowing how to swim,

I landed in water with rocks and old machinery around me

Climbed a cliff sobering fast….

Near death crap. 

Tried to kill myself with poison at age 19. A gas of some sort that sent me up a tunnel of light looking down on my body then back with a WHOOSH!

Near death crap.

Had a blood clot in my my leg had an ultra sound and found another about to fall into a big vein and head for the lungs… 

Near death crap. 

Other things happened I 

Things my mind does not want to process again, 

That coulda died

Almost died 

Near death crap

Every day I live in gratitude of being alive

Every day I accept I been living on borrowed time because of those 

Coulda died

Maybe shoulda died’s

Near death craps

Some day that wind is going to whisper too near

And in passing

Reach for me

Bump me harder than all the other times

Kill me with that disease

Keep me under ice

Clot me gasping good

Make me continue on up that bright light tunnel…

So much for near death then…

no more

No more…

I learned to embrace life

Savor so many amazing mundane moments 

Moments that ARE BEING ALIVE

HERE SO REAL 

And not near any death of mine.

Too many feel that puff of wind that nearly sends them over 

Then into that bright tunnel

Coming back 

They never learned

Not a damn thing

Never changed

Never got BETTER

From the teachers of the near deaths

Those great lessons of a gasp in wonder… 

It changed me every time

Shocked into seeing everything

Everyone different

With more beauty

More…. FEELING

An intensity of gaining more life by …

Going to near the near death craps.

How did I ever get this wonderfully far…

What a lesson it all is

Life is so precious after a brush with that dark wind 

Into 

Then out of

That tunnel of light. 

When I was born,

I fell into place.

When I was crying in school,

The tears 

The horror

That put me in the psychiatric hospital

Fell Me Into Place.

Falling down drunk

I fell into place,

LIFE fell into place.

Being stupid

Being smart

Rarely cruel

Often kind

It didn’t matter when I think about it all now

Because in this moment,

It All Fell Into Place. 

Married

Divorced

Screaming in rage

Trying to forget

It means nothing

Meant nothing

Because looking at this MOMENT

Fuck it,

It all fell into place. 

Good luck

Bad

Suffering and sublime

It never mattered

Except in every moment nothing good or bad

Painful or joy

Mattered…

Because no matter the drama

The tranquility

It never mattered 

Because it did not matter

As I fell

Life fell

That moment 

Fell into place.

As I looked down into that hole in the ground

Felt the weight of the earth pressing onto my dead body

My soul,

Sensing the grinding of rock upon me

I felt back on all my life

That moment of life

That moment of death

Nothing really mattered 

Because for a moment

There was that feeling of earth and rock

Finalized like every moment between

Everything

Falling in place, 

In It’s Moment

My moments

And everyone’s … Moments.

I have gone near death and the Darkness of Death many times

Each time that dark 

Has added 

Just a little more Light to me,

Making me Brighter inside

Because of that closeness

That intimacy with death

Mortality.

It creates for me a greater appreciation of life

All the emotions that brighten us

And the lives of those around us.

It magnifies my gratitude to LIFE

Enhances my empathy compassion and Love 

For all around me

And that me I often never appreciate

Going near the dark

Touching it

Being kissed by it’s intimacy,

I glow brighter 

Yet still…

Shudder at that shadowy kiss. 

(This may not qualify as poetry. I admit it. It is just something that happened to me today. Dropping words in this manner can explain a feeling)

Sitting in my secure place at home

Battered by waves of terror

It should be safe here, right?

But it isn’t.

Concussive waves of fear batter me 

I rock in my desk chair

I want to put my hands to my head to stop the waves of fear

(But it won’t do any good will it?

Unless you put your hands INSIDE your head). 

I was driving to work and the road lost all reality

I tried to turn around and 

Got lost in my mind

Trying to find the road back

But here I am 

Trying to keep out the waves of fear

With my hands 

Inside my head,

Trying to cover the holes in my head 

Keep the fear 

The terror from entering this head room. 

They tried to beat me down and pigeon hole me telling 

Me

Defining me

Who I am

Who I was

But

Damn them I know what I am…

(Oh what am I?

What will I BE?

What Can I be?)

Oh something greater 

So much better 

Than what they say I was

I am 

I will be…

Oh something much brighter

Stronger

More beautiful than all the “THEYS” could imagine me to be

You to be…

No matter what shit I live through

What pain

What humiliation

I reach inside to that BETTER THAN THIS

And laugh yes 

Laugh,

Saying,

“This ain’t me

I am not what you say I am

I’m not anyone’s loser and not my own

I’m better than this

Better than any labels anyone can paste on me

And better than any negatives I can label myself

Because deep down inside 

In that muck of rotting labels,

I know I am better than….

This

Better than THAT. 

The ghost you felt was watching you from the corner 

Or closet

When you were a child

Was you

After you had left all corners

All closets

And become merely the essence of you

After you had died. 

That Presence you sometimes felt

In a room

Alone 

Or in a crowd

That presence you sometimes felt

But never saw

Watching you 

As you looked for it,

Was you

Watching you

From a different time

When you were gone

But you,

Remained. 

That THING 

That made you cry in the dark with mind numbing fear

Was you

Watching you

Feeling you

Remembering you

Reaching out 

To comfort

But instead… 

Being your own unreasoning fear. 

As you stand over your remains

Watching them decay

That horror

That sadness

Gives way… 

ACCEPTANCE

As your ashes swirl in the breeze

Become One with the Wind, 

Your body rotting

Becomes a tree

A weed

Food and life for many 

You have become

Witnessing it all

Watching your life

Your death

Your life again in so many forms

You 

Suddenly Feeling AGAIN,

 One long moment as you are conceived

Screaming like the ghost you are 

Were 

And will be, 

That flash of life 

That flash of life as you die

That flash of life and death as you are born…

As One

As many … dying but ALIVE!

But Always Too the ghost, 

That presence of you beyond you

Watching you all your life

Through your death. 

Through your birth…

Over and over … Again.)

Oh brother,

I never knew you but for a few photos

And the vague memories told to me of how you were in life

Before you died at age 8.

Oh brother,

I often think of you

Filling in a life you never had

Imagining that big brother life for you

Imagining perhaps,

My not being born because you would have lived

Imagining perhaps,

Your continued life

A sacrifice of my never being born.

Oh brother,

I feel you with me at times

Watching as I write this

Looking over my shoulder

Crying with me as I cry,

Thinking about a brother I never knew

A brother I imagine 

Tries to touch my shoulder 

As we cry a duet

One so real

One in a spiritual realm

Watching

But joined with me now

In this flow of tears

Feeling you some how…

As I feel you have felt me

All my life. 

Oh brother,

I thank you for HAVING lived even 8 years

And inspired me

With love

To continue on so many times.

Oh brother,

I never knew you

But through these tears

Perhaps you can feel how much I love you. 

“Don’t jump!”

They yell at me.

Falling,

I whisper back,

“I did not jump

I was pushed 

Along time ago,

And it’s taken me this long

To Fall.”

Depression for me is falling down a hole 

Without the energy to even scream

Without the desire to live anymore 

So that I CAN scream.

It is hearing the voices of people distantly calling to me

Stupid things I try to ignore

Oh stop feeling sad

Don’t be that way

Cheer up!

But it’s like prayer for them: 

They don’t know what to do

Or what to say

So they say SOMETHING 

THEY FEEL will help

But all it is… 

Is talking down a hole

To someone disappearing

Or something

Or someone 

                                                                 Not there……