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LAST DROP OF A SALESMAN
Obediah Michael Smith
(for Kevin, April 18, 1952 to September 11, 1997)
Cut off now from all the world / cut off from him / from Kevin / as close to me as a limb. I've lost him / hope he's not lost. Christ, catcher of souls, toss your net out, gather him in / fires of hell, no place for him / miss him now, when I get to heaven, if he's not there, how I'd miss him then. Two ambulances came, unable, with all their sirens wailing, to sustain his beating heart, his breathing. Angel world and his world, Lord, let them touch, let them take him up.
Must drop like an empty sack, nothing able to hold us up. Gone from this world without a word. On the table within his life, what empty cups. Wine glass in our fingers, as if we owned something, as if we thought we were here to stay, but we're only here until the day we die.
People doing what seems to be / what seems to me / next to absolutely nothing with their lives, knocking themselves about, roughing it, bareback about the place, in the draught, in the night / with the dogs who roam the streets in the dead of night / lights of these persons seem to remain alight. Nice people with a role to play, with so much significant to do, to say, just pass away.
Taste life. Taste like the blood of Christ. Bud of eternal life in us, in all the world. Pearl that he was, whirled about in a game of chance. Who knew it would be stopping here / at this place / at this time.
Why could he not, could he no longer, cling to life—
What does dead mean / no more of so many things. No more to give, no more to get, no more exchange. After so many days of living, of giving, of doing so many things, one day, a very strange day, dead. So sudden, impossible so soon to get used to. No where to be found / no where around, though a body's in our midst, right here on the ground. Personality within it, no longer within it. As if somebody pulled a plug out / dead not quick. This full stop, startling to come upon, to behold / to be held by death / its coldness, stillness, silence. Someone we know so well, on the other side of a divide. End, so abrupt, too abrupt to do anything but break down and cry, when someone very close to us dies.
Death, always lurking so very near by / around every corner of this capital city / of this island town. Death always lurking so very near by. Not long ago, Death, in its black suit, was a gentleman, much more polite but it's become a hyena, hungry, pouncing on anyone, as if hungry for meat, as if hungry for us to meet our maker. Death, of late, always lurking so very nearby.
We all live so close to the edge, not much left to do but to fall in / in our little island nation, in its capital especially. Life for nearly all of us, lived as if upon a precipice's edge, upon the rim of something grim about to happen. No butter in between the criminal and the law- abiding / no butter between the bread of life nor the dead and the living / no Bufferin able to ease the pain.
Life like tissue, blow y'ur nose, y'ur dead. So thin, so frail, the wall between this life / this world and the next / between here and there and now and then. On this wall's / this world's other side / across the divide. From the five senses cut off. Senses extracted from their sockets, unable to receive or send the briefest or the simplest message.
So much unfinished business to finish when we die. Ghost-like, ghost life, unable to answer the phone or dial a number. So many promises to keep. So many miles to go but he's asleep. Unable to keep another appointment, take on another project or finish the many already started. Must drop, exhausted, thirsty, as if life's walk took us across a desert when we all anticipate the day when life would be one continuous dessert of guava duff and apple pie with their toppings, following a meal of turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing.
Didn't think that I could bear to see him so very very fast asleep. When a spider catches a victim in its web, nothing gets between them. As if our crying was our trying to pull him from the web, from the claws of death. As if our screaming were able to bring him back / to laugh, to dance, to sing, sign a check, drink a Budweiser or a Beck's, have a party at his apartment. But once the human engine shuts off, no starting it ag'in / no mechanic among us, that gifted / insufficient faith among us to raise the dead. We'd not know how, in times like these, to deal with such a miracle. No place in our pragmatism to put what's supernatural. Who's sleeping, let them sleep, until the next life. Hope that when the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there and he'll be there and you'll be there.
Holy, Lord Jesus, besides thee, in times like these, in times of need, I've got no one to run to, to turn to, to take my burden to and like a piece of pie or cake or the thigh of a chicken, divide it in two. All alone in good times and in bad / alone with my ups and downs / when life picks me up and keeps me up or licks me down. Still around after all the world goes down. The last man left must remain steadfast / must hold fast to life, to the mast, horizontal in the water, until help comes / until someone comes along. But what is it for and who is it for that we struggle so hard and die so weary / dropping to the ground wherever we are when death arrives / must drop whatever we're doing / whatever we're eating or drinking / whomever we're loving and leave our bodies upon the earth, like luggage left behind.
Death, anesthetic, could extract a tooth or ten or sever a limb, the owner's not home. As if he left his body asleep somewhere and went off and forgot to return to reclaim it, to get into it like a sleeping bag or a wet suit and zip it up and get up. A body left, without anyone in it, without feeling enough in it to feel a pinch, to squeal in pain. Cut off the five senses like a faucet when we die / not a drop of life left in us.
Copyright © by Obediah Michael Smith
LAST DROP OF A SALESMAN
Obediah Michael Smith
(for Kevin, April 18, 1952 to September 11, 1997)
Cut off now from all the world / cut off from him / from Kevin / as close to me as a limb. I've lost him / hope he's not lost. Christ, catcher of souls, toss your net out, gather him in / fires of hell, no place for him / miss him now, when I get to heaven, if he's not there, how I'd miss him then. Two ambulances came, unable, with all their sirens wailing, to sustain his beating heart, his breathing. Angel world and his world, Lord, let them touch, let them take him up.
Must drop like an empty sack, nothing able to hold us up. Gone from this world without a word. On the table within his life, what empty cups. Wine glass in our fingers, as if we owned something, as if we thought we were here to stay, but we're only here until the day we die.
People doing what seems to be / what seems to me / next to absolutely nothing with their lives, knocking themselves about, roughing it, bareback about the place, in the draught, in the night / with the dogs who roam the streets in the dead of night / lights of these persons seem to remain alight. Nice people with a role to play, with so much significant to do, to say, just pass away.
Taste life. Taste like the blood of Christ. Bud of eternal life in us, in all the world. Pearl that he was, whirled about in a game of chance. Who knew it would be stopping here / at this place / at this time.
Why could he not, could he no longer, cling to life—
What does dead mean / no more of so many things. No more to give, no more to get, no more exchange. After so many days of living, of giving, of doing so many things, one day, a very strange day, dead. So sudden, impossible so soon to get used to. No where to be found / no where around, though a body's in our midst, right here on the ground. Personality within it, no longer within it. As if somebody pulled a plug out / dead not quick. This full stop, startling to come upon, to behold / to be held by death / its coldness, stillness, silence. Someone we know so well, on the other side of a divide. End, so abrupt, too abrupt to do anything but break down and cry, when someone very close to us dies.
Death, always lurking so very near by / around every corner of this capital city / of this island town. Death always lurking so very near by. Not long ago, Death, in its black suit, was a gentleman, much more polite but it's become a hyena, hungry, pouncing on anyone, as if hungry for meat, as if hungry for us to meet our maker. Death, of late, always lurking so very nearby.
We all live so close to the edge, not much left to do but to fall in / in our little island nation, in its capital especially. Life for nearly all of us, lived as if upon a precipice's edge, upon the rim of something grim about to happen. No butter in between the criminal and the law- abiding / no butter between the bread of life nor the dead and the living / no Bufferin able to ease the pain.
Life like tissue, blow y'ur nose, y'ur dead. So thin, so frail, the wall between this life / this world and the next / between here and there and now and then. On this wall's / this world's other side / across the divide. From the five senses cut off. Senses extracted from their sockets, unable to receive or send the briefest or the simplest message.
So much unfinished business to finish when we die. Ghost-like, ghost life, unable to answer the phone or dial a number. So many promises to keep. So many miles to go but he's asleep. Unable to keep another appointment, take on another project or finish the many already started. Must drop, exhausted, thirsty, as if life's walk took us across a desert when we all anticipate the day when life would be one continuous dessert of guava duff and apple pie with their toppings, following a meal of turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing.
Didn't think that I could bear to see him so very very fast asleep. When a spider catches a victim in its web, nothing gets between them. As if our crying was our trying to pull him from the web, from the claws of death. As if our screaming were able to bring him back / to laugh, to dance, to sing, sign a check, drink a Budweiser or a Beck's, have a party at his apartment. But once the human engine shuts off, no starting it ag'in / no mechanic among us, that gifted / insufficient faith among us to raise the dead. We'd not know how, in times like these, to deal with such a miracle. No place in our pragmatism to put what's supernatural. Who's sleeping, let them sleep, until the next life. Hope that when the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there and he'll be there and you'll be there.
Holy, Lord Jesus, besides thee, in times like these, in times of need, I've got no one to run to, to turn to, to take my burden to and like a piece of pie or cake or the thigh of a chicken, divide it in two. All alone in good times and in bad / alone with my ups and downs / when life picks me up and keeps me up or licks me down. Still around after all the world goes down. The last man left must remain steadfast / must hold fast to life, to the mast, horizontal in the water, until help comes / until someone comes along. But what is it for and who is it for that we struggle so hard and die so weary / dropping to the ground wherever we are when death arrives / must drop whatever we're doing / whatever we're eating or drinking / whomever we're loving and leave our bodies upon the earth, like luggage left behind.
Death, anesthetic, could extract a tooth or ten or sever a limb, the owner's not home. As if he left his body asleep somewhere and went off and forgot to return to reclaim it, to get into it like a sleeping bag or a wet suit and zip it up and get up. A body left, without anyone in it, without feeling enough in it to feel a pinch, to squeal in pain. Cut off the five senses like a faucet when we die / not a drop of life left in us.
Copyright © by Obediah Michael Smith
posted by Obie Quiet at 4:58 AM
1 Comments:
I thank you for reading it.
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