The River Rhine

Part.1

I never knew that living felt like dying

Waking to a sickening feeling, no

Like a pit was quietly opening up

To swallow me whole. Not that I feel whole

You know—more like an animal, sniffling

Around, licking up crumbs, yes, crumbs, that's it!

Tiny pieces, reminisces, God, the memories!

Like thick and clammy, clumped-up, dirty air,

too hard to swallow, too hard to inhale.

The memories, they choke, a million murderers

With chilly hands, hands clamping down, vice grips.

A sip of poison, like a cup you can't stop drinking from.

Sometimes like a coat to the rain or a boat to the drain,

Tired and floating from peace—where would be the relief?

Find me, I'm tired. Hope, why must you always delay? 

Finally I'll settle, it seems that I should relay

my wishes to the docks that will bear this body

not shivering nor shaking but sightless to that ground

where I'd be home; let madness stop the sights I see.

I never knew that dying felt like life

Lights put out, show over, empty and clear.

Coloured flowers, smiles as wide as riversides

The death to all this transient desire,

A little baptism, an insignificant John.

I put on my shoes peacefully, it's fine, 

There'll be a boat for me beyond the Rhine.

Part. 2

I thought I knew that death would lead to life

when Death caught me by the hand, when surprise

crawled over hand and foot, like a broken nest of spider eggs 

In the dark fear spreads out, a sick simultaneity.

My lungs were seized and punched into a stillness

A weakness, a submission near spiritual

In force—how spiritual it is to breath the air

Of death; The proximity pries open the soul

like a robber's greedy hands upon a listless door.

It pushes, like some seller at a marketplace,

Your thoughts and intents right before you, setting

in this dark, pale, putrid, yellow light, with splotchy

interferences of colour, glum greys, sick greens,

Sin inside, all violence and disease—can anybody

choose not to concede what is concealed within

the heart of man and, God knows, in woman too!

Sin, ever perfect egalitarian

Not discriminating, all are welcome;

And here in the dark we are hospitable.

I thought I knew that life would lead through death

But did I know the way would be so dark, so wet

So pasted with the horrors seen and unseen?

What would be a baptism? What would be a John?

A voice calling? But my voice is nearly gone.

Where are my shoes? I lost them on the way

So there by the edge of the Rhine I stay.