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A PRE-ELEGY FOR MYSELF
A PRE ELEGY FOR MYSELF
Before the fatal death bed throttle, let me elegize myself
For who knows if I will hate God then, but now I do not:
But who knows if my demise will create such a gulf.
In that final hour there can be no further deal struck,
Ever since I can remember I tried to deal with him;
I either blame him for everything or my own dumb luck.
A world of ills has come down like winter snow; here
Whatever ruse we make of it, the end comes anyhow;
Jail house religion ordered up, to take with you on the go.
The last sound, the last trumpet, the world goes out without
A breath: in spite of pride or punishment the candle goes out
Upon our death. For this pre-elegy at least I have my say.
When the deepest wound cometh, we will not say a word,
Except to count each burnt minute of wail and dire woe;
Waiting to die can make the most patient sublimely bored.
Every minute is a pre-elegy until that appointed hour;
Pale boned then and rifer with life because the time is short...
We pick at life’s petals until there is not a single flower.
On that darkest day and in that couching room, let it be said
I had to say my peace in this aforementioned pre- elegy.
Having done this I now no longer wait to be dead.
