Hissing The Gifts

This death-cracked creature

Lying on the sidewalk as I open my car door

Broken neck cracked on a windshield

Or a building wall

Did it know this day was its day to die?

Will any of us know when it’s our day to die?

Death sits like Satan’s parakeet

Resting its weary bones

Upon my shoulder

Whispering the word loss into my weaknesses

Further

Into my fire, into my spirit

Attempting to frighten me

Into submission… Into defiance…

Or into this voice

And so the Funeral songs begin to play in my head

Dylan in is Long Black Coat

Cohen in his Secret Life

Lanegan in his Kingdoms of Rain

Because I know the fear makes us push it away

Call it morbid, even call it sin…

It makes us focus on any other distraction

Instead of the sign that's showing us the way

I watched a band of circling crows covet a hissing possum with his guts hanging out, dying slow, while walking my dog on a sunny Los Angeles Monday morning

I watched a young man get hit by a white van only to stand right up and collapse back down like a rubber band on 23rd street while carrying my lunch back to an office on a Tuesday afternoon

And I watched a big brown rat get run over by a car twice and still crawl to die in his gutter in familiar waters on 3rd street and Avenue B while eating magic mushrooms on a raining Friday evening

Because Death is already knocking at the door

Ready to take away everything you think that matters

And more

Whispering loss into the fiber of all you think you are

To the very core

Showing you the mirror

The fear inside it all

Dressed up in all its gore

To awaken the dream of truly living whatever time you have left

If nothing else, THIS should be the lure!

And I am afraid of dying, or at least of dying anytime soon

Of missing out on my daughters ordinary moments

But more for her, of her not having her father
To share these all too coveted
Death-cracked moments

So when someone tells you they hope you die

And the hypocrisy in their false positive demeanor

Ultimately shows its ugly side

Let the offense only appall you for moments

And let the fear creep its head in for the best

Because in a world like this

You have to take from everything

All that you're able to get

In order to

Separate the butterfly
From the locust’s nest

The responsibility is solely yours

Because from the way I see it

Most people are shit
Rodents roaming..

Worthy of nothing more than the fucking tarpits

Believing their life really means something

Only because their lives are coveted

They've been born into comfort and laziness

And never groomed the where-with-all

To ever contemplate outshadowing it

Because Death is already knocking at their doors

But they push it away

Kicking and screaming

Spitting

Constantly
Hissing the gift

ⓒ 2011 Shawn Michael Quinn