Lately...Death

Lately...Death

Death has been occupying me of late.
Befriending me
At my own behest.
In a way I'm not sorry
One likes to keep track
Of destination's
Due date.

Souls keep checking out
Of Hotel earth
From suites hyperborean
Or down under
From the big fat
Equatorial belt
Bulging with excess.
Relentless release
From hyperbaric chambers
Enriched with compressed
Oxygen
Relevance immaterial.

But life breath
Isn't soul food.
Sometimes a vital bit
Is missing.

Sometimes the earth
Is just hungry for brute
Ablutions in blood.

Sometimes the tension between air
And ground snaps
And tears off the wings
Of Icarus
Metallic birds plunge into
Gorges
Flesh rips off
The soul.

And they're set free
To fly.

Even if fragile and fay
They don't know
How or where.

I'm running a list
In my mind

How Many Ways
Are there for
Us to die.

This is
Deathwatch.

Social media has a way
Of bumping into us
With death notices
Suddenly
The living page
Turns obituary

Time frozen
Left like a grain
Of sand
For sea to wash away.

The brain humps down
To a piece of meat
Inanimate unappetizing
It never says
I was once capable
Of twisted turns and convolutions
Of coursing through neuro synapses
To create a palpable
Network teleological
And taut
Integrating fact with feeling.

It never iterates
Its erstwhile capacity
Of thought or love
Greater than yours.

It never demonstrates
The demons wrestled down
The indelible mark of hurt.

The brain hunkers down
Like a grainy grey pretzel
And blandly eyeballs us
From formaldehyde jar.

I cannot hold the heights
I was aware of.

I cannot preserve the depths
Of mysteries I
Wallowed in.

Why I cannot even hold
The love I felt within.

The most profound
Inner part of me

Now has become the wind.

I
Am
Death's head
Doorway to
Gehenna
Entry to
Hades.

Friendship with me
Is not an option.

We are blood brothers
Life and I

The day we are born
We cry...

An oath
Is uttered.

And it will
Be honored.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018