Mr. Death

You've been a hard man to get to know, Mr. Death.
As a boy you came to me in the guise of a teacher
Attempting to console me in my sob-wracked grief;
Or you'd appear in the holy robes of a preacher
Laboring ineffectively to explain the inexplicable,
The dark,unfathomable descent into oblivion,
In terminology incomprehensible to a child.

As a teen you were my laconic black-leather buddy
Scorning consequences with a James Dean sneer,
Then a dismissive "don't sweat any of that shit, guy;
You're immortal."  From suicide machines to fast cars,
From drunken debauches to drug-induced euphoria
You partied with us; raising a glass to our departed friends
While smugly savoring their testosterone-driven deaths.

After I settled down, married and began to act less selfish,
I began to fear you'd summon me, leaving my family bereft.
You donned an insurance agent's budget rack attire,
Smarmy smile and over the top concern to pressure premiums
To guarantee my family's safety.  Then you became a pedophile
Lurking in the park, a drunk driver careening down the street;
Random evil out there plotting to take my child from me.

Now you've become Time; the cruel devourer of my dreams.
I see lines you've carved upon my face as I gaze into the mirror,
I feel you in my aching joints that used to be so supple;
I hear you in the shrieking whine of a siren in the distance
As an ambulance speeds frantically toward some destination
That I pray is not the home of someone that I love.  If so,
I touch your white parchment skin in a funeral casket.

Mr. Death, I've wondered at you, driven with you,
Dealt with you, feared you, and foolishly tried to outrun you.
I am not ready to let you take me by the hand yet.
I know that there will come a day when you will come for me,
Perhaps in the guise of some dear departed loved one
Whose familiar visage will reassure me as you gently lead me
Into your inescapable realm of eternal repose.

When sickness, loneliness or despair drive me into your arms,
I'll relish the moment when I part the curtain of superstition,
Lift the veil from your head and at last finally view your face;
Something I could never have hoped to see during my life,
But something that I've always both feared and longed to do.
This tumult of experience and emotion that we call "Life"
Is wearing me down, Mr. Death.  Be patient.  I'll be along anon.

Melville in Bondage

"Oh, devilish tantalization of the Gods!"
Fayeaway, the sea and the faraway islands
And spice
Still tugged at the man who labored
At the Custom House desk.
The damnable drudgery was just a bone
Of existance
That had been flung his way
By a contemptuous government.
He!
Who should be leading expeditions
Into the impenatrable
Dogma-shrouded jungle of thought
That had grown to mask
The inscrutable Almighty's intent!
Prometheus-bound by import forms
And cargo manifests
While drums in the darkness
Pound the message of his failure.

Passion-fruit and pineapples
Plucked from a South-Sea paradise.
All had to be recorded
Like one's sins in the Book of Life.
"To produce a mighty book
You must choose a mighty theme."
Here he was
Scratching entries onto a cargo ledger,
Shackled to wage-slave monotony,
Enduring serfdom to "free" himself
From dependence on his wife's family's income.
They assure him that this job will help him
To evade the clutch of madness
That had entered his life once
And had wrested his father from him.
It buys him respect and honor
In the eyes of the world
While his lance lays abandoned
In the inkwell in his study.

He'd hurled it in anger
At an image of a great white whale;
Paradise Lost rebellion
Seasoned with the madness of Lear.
"A book broiled in hellfire."
Ishmael, Ahab, Elijah and Rachel;
Old Testament allusions rained
From his pen like a baptism
Exploding from the coat
Of a vigorously shaking dog.
It had just come bounding in
From a cold New England brook
With a stick of diabolical truth
Clamped tightly in its teeth.
"From hell's heart I stab at thee,"
He growled, unwilling to let go
Of his treasure.  "For hate's sake
I spit my last breath at thee."
He'd railed at the world
And at its architect of injustices.

"Talk not to me of blasphemy, Man!"
He again raged angrily,
Feeling landlocked and deskbound.
"I'd strike at the Sun if it insulted me.!"
And an insult it was too
To have to sullenly endure the curses
Of sea captains.

"Hey Melville! Get off your ass
And check us in!
My boys have been round the Horn
To Hell and back!
Now all we want is to be logged off
This floating coffin!
Hustle over here, dammit!"

Yea, to endure a damp, drizzly
November of the soul in this place,
With a world of adventure,
The seven seas and exotic ports
Beckoning just beyond the horizon
Was just too much to bear.
Was his family worth it?
His wife?
His children?

Was anything?

He wrote "NO!" in thunder,
Then shrugged and bent over his ledger.
He had pretty much made up his mind
To be annihilated.