The Death Of Me Poem by Lonnie Hicks

Death sat
contemplating suicide
while speaker after speaker
opined:

The scientist intoned;
'The Cell is immortal
only personalities die;
Death cannot commit suicide! '

The Buddhist decried
all end points
citing endless cycles, renewals.
and reincarnations.

The biologist argued
that the only death that
mattered was the death of species;
'Individual biology matters least.'

'Only the planet matters'
said the environmentalist.


America lofted the individual
graffiting on the Universal wall
'All Death is the Death of the individual.'

The British had no remedy
offering instead a spot of tea
saying Death Down
is better sipped
with chin-up determination.

The pastor said
'Death is but a passage
on to Heaven or Hell
and best to get your life straightened out
before you hear that tolling bell.'

The Fatalist said 'do it, do it.'
It is inevitable'

'Death' said the existentialist
'is other people who
can kill your spirit
even before Death comes-
you arrive already dead
at Deaths Door.

Life too
is other people
who can make Death mute
in a life well understood.

But, above all
Death cannot commit suicide;
if you do I will have nothing to write about'
said the Existentialist.

Death rose finally and spoke
in breathy tones:

'I admit
I have enjoyed
the praise of the Fatalist;
enjoyed my role as the Last Aribitor
of Grim Joy
and Lifeless Bravado;
all come to me
with diverse faces
fear, hunger, worshiping or welcoming;

but my Joyless Smile
silences all of them
because on this side of the portal
I am King.

To some I am Joy, or Release
others see me as Horror Grim.

But I am
to me
much maligned
and misunderstood.

Now in my own Suicide;
all this will be clarified
my death means the end of time;
the end of all history.
Birth too
shall also end
with my demise.'

'My suicide'
Death said
is then, too,
the Death of all Things,

because Life has no place
in the Universe
without first
I, Death,
having also lived.

You humans
fragment what is an Immutable Whole
and point to fragmented beginnings and endings;
guide your lives by these
and blind yourself to the Wholism Seed
which says;

there is no beginning and no end
there is only the passing
through the Passages
where Birth is the very End
and too
the very beginning
mediated by the Grim Gatekeeper:
Me.


Life spoke saying

'Death you say
that your demise
is essential to my own beginning,
that without endings
there can be clearly no beginnings
and with no Stops On The Railway
of Time and Space;
everything ceases to exist.

'So Friend Death you say
we should relent:
for all to continue
to exist
we must forbear you
so that the flowers might bloom
so that time continues to mate with space,
so that all that is possible
is birthed
from Death's fine potential;
and Life's creation
is of a piece
made possible too
by your suicide.
I Life, owe you
everything.'.

Death sprang from his seat.
'You make a mockery of me?
Do you say that I am but a path
to you Life and irrelevant;

only a handmaiden
to your purpose.? '

Death's anger was livid red
with his dark countenance
the mix was maroon tint.

Life stood his ground
to rejoin:
'
'You Death have a fatal flaw:
in laying claim
as life's progenitor
once spent and shorn you say
we all fall into your arms
to reluctantly embrace the night;
our true inheritor? '

Life stood her full height
sputtering
'The purpose of existence is not Death
but Life.'

You have misunderstood;
Death is not the dying
nor is it the Surrender of Life.
In Death
not only does the individual die
but sadly Death
you too
also die
because the dream is one of Immortality
not Dead Death
that you represent.

Indeed you are the Grim
and with each day
have no memory
that you are the dead
one dying;
most times by suicide.

Shocked and humbled
Death gasped.
'Can this be true? '

'I die a thousand million deaths
so that you life
can renew? '

'True' Life said
You are not Marytar but obstacle to the New
and die so that
I
Life can be.'
You are a means
not the end.

'Think on this Death.
Came Life renew from Grim Death?
That is too precious an irony and
more
is likely untrue.'

'No Life renews from Life
and you Death must step aside
by natural cause,
or suicide.

Blanching
Death said
'All of this then
predicates on the Death of Me
endlessly? '

'I think so' said Life;
and it was so
that Death
then died by his own hand;
a reluctant suicide;
saying:

Death is individual
including mine;
repeated endlessly
its seems
for all time
and each time
I forget,
it seems
my own
death
is doomed
to repeat again
and I not remember..

'All Death'
Death said
in his last swoon

is the
Death of Me.'
My own Death
not remembered.

'And' Life said
'if you don't go willingly
or by suicide
Nature has decreed
you will have to go
Unpeacefully
by my hand.

'Such a simple truth.'
Death said

'Life is first in all
of the Universe
and Death
is last
and favored least.


Tragic, too,
because it is my destiny
to Die
again, and again
by my own hand.

'Saddest of all Ironies
I am Death
and I die too
but last
my death is noble best.'

Death said with his last breath

With that
he expired;
Life catching
his final expiration.