I don’t know what to say to the dying

This is a rough sketch of something I've been working on. It's not exactly perfect.

This is for World Poetry Day. It evens rhymes in parts.

It is...
I don’t know what to say to the dying

Photo by Cecil Beaton, Gwili Andre, 1932

I don’t know what to say to the dying.

What worth to my words by the morning.  

I don’t know what to say to the dying.

Would they hear the obituary I wrote them.  

I don’t know what to say to the dying.

I say it’s OK, it's fine, and I’ve no idea why.  

I’m no voice of comfort to the dying.

I hold their hand tight so I know I’m not a monster.  

I don’t know what to say to the dying.

So I listen, but they never ask questions of me.

So I listen, and I hope they can speak of things they see.

So I often believed a death bed was as comfortable as the life led.

Then I needed to forgive me and them for all words un-said.

Because communication is breaking and can’t be mended.

When bones, cartilage and shallow cold breaths are at the last of a life ended.

When everything is failing and crashing and giving up the ghost.

God knows, what was important in this life?

Why do I never say goodbye?

It always troubles me.

I don’t know what to say to the dying.

I find it easier to talk about my working day.  

I don’t know what to say to the dying.

I try to talk in uplifting ambiance imagery.  

I don’t know what to say to the dying.

I tell them who they’ll meet, I’ve no idea why.  

I collect pieces of time from the dying.

Not like teeth so I know I’m not a monster.

Guest graveyard poem: 'When dying is beautiful', by Little Miss Funeral

Graveyard poetry is seldom practiced thing these days.
Little Miss Funeral has written an honest, poignant graveyard poem entitled "When Dying is Beautiful".
It deserves to be read more.

"When Dying is Beautiful" is a graveyard poem that flies.
It can be read here:
https://littlemissfuneral.com/2017/03/17/when-dying-is-beautiful/

~/~

Imagine an evening of readings by Graveyard poets in the back room of an old Edinburgh bar. Standing in front of the small, shuffling, audience under fairy lights, lens flaring through the nectar pints of I.P.A.

I would love to read Greville and the Tombstones stuff on the same bill as Little Miss Funeral.

There is super authenticity in her writing and landscape. Little Miss Funeral is a funeral director in New York. Plus, I mean, Little Miss Funeral is an awesome poet name. Think of the promotional posters for that reading gig!

We would make a good evening mix of graveyard poetry, nihilism and death positivity.

Anyway, enough day dreaming of sell-out gigs and crowd-surfing. I sincerely hope to read more of her poetic writing whenever Little Miss Funeral would like to write it.



I know you'll enjoy it just as much as I. Here is: When Dying is Beautiful

by

littlemissfuneral

When I think of dying I become afraid.

Not of death itself,

but of the act of dying.

I don’t want it to hurt.

I don’t want it to last long.

I want to slip from this life into the next.

And when I think of dying in that way,

as in being born again,

I’m not afraid.

I think of how I’ll feel when I’m with my grandpa again.

And if I think that the ocean is beautiful now,

think of how spectacular it will be in paradise.

When people I love die, I hurt.

I don’t understand it.

But I’m not meant to understand everything.

I’m meant to do my best.

I’m meant to trust in God.

What we have here is only temporary.

But one day when I close my eyes,

I will open them to a permanent love.

A love that fully embraces me.

And when I think of dying in this way

I think death is very beautiful.

You can read more by Little Miss Funeral via her blog.

Avery's dreams and the club of the damned

Jeanie Laub, artist and someone I am humbled to call a friend, has a blog:

Avery's dreams and the club of the damned

It is wonderful pocket watch sized rabbit hole of emotive, curious images.

Recently I was delighted that Jeanie put my poetry there:
Poetry of Greville Tombs
Life flashes into rolling death

I can call myself a member of the Club of the Damned. That is very pleasing.

An overly worded allegory about how the sun will rise after a death

In ways this is the reflection of Life Flashes into Rolling Death - A something that offers hope after it. It's my most hopeful work yet.

It is a little wordy though. This is my effort at a stream of consciousness like Michael Stipe.



This is about the great cosmic truth.

Irina Ionesco - Sylvia Kristel, ca. 1980

This is:
An overly worded allegory about how the sun will rise after a death

Like a log from the woodpile,

I take a day and toss it onto the fire.

It jags itself into the melee, gripping fast so that it makes a dull knock.

A chuff into the white ash remains and the dying warmth is shocked alive.

The log draws back its jagged, cracked lips, hissing a sneer from within the consummation.

“You can burn truths from me only once”

….

Peppermint green lichen sprigs along the log curl with flecks of gold

cutting from thermals.

Tiny fires spiral upwards and zip out of existence hither and thither.
Rings softly blacken in the lazy heat and I wonder at the catch.

….

The catch latches as it studies the form

and flames appear as if summoned from the loose veil.

The bark bends in a stretch of cracking ecstasy.
Glorious and painful sounds:
A firecracker whipped – once, twice – three times quick!
Short puffs of smoke.
Like a cornered man who paid for the bullets getting his shots fired off.
A hazy, stinging, spice science scent mixed with mellow nature entwine in the air.
They catch my breath and sting terrible water from my eyes.
….
There is fizz from the rings, a dry boiling.
Flames emerge through the log.
They shiver as springing new-borns and quickly find their confidence
blooming into thin petals, with roots, feeding on the log.
Flimsy threads, with the precision of a surgeon and the intent of a back alley ripper
....
The flame incants:
drumming and throwing quick dash shapes almost recognisable in glow.
Firelight splashes uneven surfaces in strokes and smears of rich oranges and warning reds.
Arteries form on the char wood.
Lava lines pulse through the block.
It is being used up by the hot death in a cauldron of lurid stroke marks.
….
Low now. Low.
The pastel fire cares little for the log now they are well acquainted.
Ammonia pink and eggshell blue at the heart base of the hearth.
A molten, swirling pearl from the Indian Sea.
Flames:
languid and calm from a veteran heat, settle on the log.
A darkness is in fire, a flame is not all bright – a black root fuels the deepest leaf.
….
Dark, darker still the day:
the black oil blues of a crow’s feather.
The work of a deep violence, captivating and purifying in the deathly swallow.
It spits and spritz final curses from between those jagged, singed lips.
….
The morbs drape over me like a heavy woollen rug wrapping tight round me.
My soul:
still warmed from the primordial fire – the log – now fully black of soot in the hearth.
Heat has melted this weighed monochrome rug of morose into round, dark droplets.
Then I watch as they too melt, to be absorbed and to scuttle about my grey being.
Touch:
the searing lancing truth of philosophy.
A thousand pin pricks.
Shadows:
bird wings forcing dead air down upon me.
A thousand flapping wings.
This melancholic fever, a gloom of urgency on my time, will not break.
For how long this mistress of my soul wants to keep me for her bidding,
I do not know.
I toss another log onto the fire.
….
Then first tentative light of a new day again.
It takes only a little point on the circumference of the turning,
burning sun for it to fill the room.
Waves hit the drawn thin yellow drapes, blushes into a diffuse, innocent yellow.
It fills this empty box, like I am living through the surface of light itself
I sit cross-legged in front of them like a screen projecting pure unshaped wonder at me.

Lebensrückblenden in den heranrollenden Tod, Von Greville Tombs

I am very honoured and privileged whenever the Greville and the Tombstones' works are reinterpreted.

I am very lucky to have a friend in @tellthee who I deeply appreciate of her great efforts in transforming her very favourite words from the band into her native German language. Unlike songs with musical constraint, Greville and the Tombstones has no music so can be rendered beautifully into German which never fail to leave me awed in their new sound.

Here is:
Lebensrückblenden in den heranrollenden Tod, Von Greville Tombs
(translation from Life flashes into rolling death)