Isay

November 13th,2003.
3:00 PM
Somewhere in Quebec

Life is a choice and you've made yours
go away
go away
Dance away
from my door
all stretched out long and subline
you & your body lies still
in a cheap makeshift
box of pine
chips~

The room from wall to wall is filled
with
soothsayers
with
nodding acquaintances
with
family
and the whores
from down on Elizabeth Street
You know
the ones that you would meet
when it was a high you craved
and not love
when it was Mary you screamed out too
high above
of your fierce and exquiste
pain
seeking to wrap yourself
in others
just like you
on the main

and
hoping to what ~
thwart for a moment
that universal torment
all addicts of life coddle and keep alive
at all costs
at all costs

hoping for what ~
to find the hidden love in
the comfortable misery
you share

do you dare

So the room is filled to capacity
and some laugh
and some cry
and some still wonder
why
and some say nothing at all
and some leave for a smoke
some for a toke
some for a drink
a coke
and others for tea

they file
one by one
past your dead weight body all shiny and clean
that once
held your soul
for this time around
for this lifetime
around
until you are lowered
into the
ground

and in the end
they walk right on by
like a part in a play
you are only one act
and they
we
have
others to see
to be
in
until we too are
the focus of the moment
the fleeting moment
when death is your party
and all are invited
and all bring their
best wishes
and the look on your
face
is frozen in time
etched in the memory
of those
who gaze upon you
your children will see you forever
wearing your look of death
in the mask
in the
cheap box of pine
where your body lies
all proper
and fine
not telling the full story
of the boy who lay in it
not revealing the truth
of his last days on earth
of his last thoughts
at the hearth
and the fire behind it
that was his
life
no
not telling the story
at all
not at all.

And how I dreamed when we were young
that you would grow and shoot forward and be the one

And maybe you were
are.