Fuck Death
By Jim Chandler

(for Cait)

fuck death & fuck
the long dark
that follows

courage pushes death
back down the road
balls make death
blanch and turn pale

don't ever be
afraid to die
because it
was what you were
born to do

don't give death
the satisfaction
of a raging struggle

just smile
at the bastard
and go quietly

that pisses death off
death loves to see
you fight & scream
death wants you to
acknowledge the passage
death wants you to
plead & beg

don't ever
ask for mercy
not because
it's weak
but because it's foolish

there is no mercy
it's a word
painted in books
of mythology

something to dangle over
a condemned head
mercy is just
a second chance
to die
& who needs to
do it twice

bite the bullet
the first time &
when the curtain
of blackness draws
across the eyes
know that some vibration
from your passage
still exists

some wakes
in the air still bounce
on flesh and bone

you raised hell
& somebody remembers

that's all there is
but that's good enough

some of us
leave a few words &
some of us
leave nothing

but in the end
it all becomes nothing
just as the earth
will someday return to
the nothingness
whence it came

so shall we return
to nothing &
hell did you worry
about the
revolutionary war

i didn't &
i won't the next one

i'll be that old dead
dandy in aspic

crooning hillbilly
death blues with
soundless vocal cords
vibrating in a vacuum

spaceman of the great unknown
whooshing among
dust motes
too happy to notice
the loss of
light & being

no memory of
gravity to taint
the dream

just smooth dark
gliding on
on
on

forever

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