You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone Poem by johannes lewinsky

1
You take out of me don't you
The wind from my sails take just as i think
We're flying....

But flying isn't it is it
Or only intermittently

Flying is for feathered wings
That were born to and only it

What we're here for is different
what we're here for is learning

learning to find the wings we never had
whilst chained to a rock
And learning to get to grips
With the impossibility of it

because it's the idea of it
inspires us and compels us
never to quit

2
She seemed so well
Was so well was
so overflowing
With the will to create and was

Which is all that life should be
And health is and how she of all is
Fashioning dreaming and recreating
And whistling singing the while as if

There might never be another chance
To sing it or make it or be it

And only the next morning
They're shunting her off to the hospital
And pumping her full of that and this

Which forces the question
Is this what it is is this
The inexorable equation

can this only come from this
Proliferation from incipient
Sickness and must we be
goaded by this this insidious
diminution of vital resources
that triggers this egregious
outpouring of love and need


as though a visit to the mortuary
might be the best and only way
to stimulate the best from us
and as though she knows all too well
that she has no need of a visit
for she carries the mortuary within her

3
I wish i could
I would if i could
Draw this from out of you
This distemper plagues you
Threatens to derail you

You who have done so much
Come so far unremittingly fought
That which we cannot but is and wills
that it have its way with you

I do not accept that it must be this
I do not accept that you should be
Because of what they did to you
Invalided out any more than i have ever

Or will accept that i should
Marginalised discounted be because
of all that i have not been able

I do not accept the limits you seek to impose

Rather i will that i will
And i know that you will
And i will that you be not
Ever today or tomorrow
Or ever resign yourself to be
anything that you yourself
have not willed for yourself willed

Nobody's yesterday should be permitted
to define their tomorrows and yes
we all have to deal with consequences

But consequences are not there to be overcome
But discounted utterly
as is anything that would reduce us

This is the anthem i sing for you
This is the anthem i sing for anybody
Who has been knocked back traduced
By circumstance

Which is why i will that i will
Be enabled to do it for you
And break the back
of this hydra that plagues you still

4
Run little one run
Run as fast as your legs will take you
On and up and round and down
Up country down and up until you come

Not for your life come but because
It is your life and you have it
To do with it what it takes and run
in spite of all they might have said
To the contrary for the contrary
is your genius sweetheart

And I know it because
And this you'll never admit
(And i wouldn't expect you to either)
I put it there willed it

Willed it without knowing it
Willed that you would
Because i've believed it ever since
I was capable of believing anything

Be something miraculous be because
Miraculous things happen
When you believe they can
And only then

Run little one run and win
Because that is why and how
i made you