Starring Death As Himself

Good mourning Uncle, you are missed,
(sage, rambler, floating forever adrift)


Let us personify Death for a stanza or so,
let us personify Death for a second.


Let us say that cliche rictus snarled at you from the roadside as those long tapered talons outstretched for your chest,
and toyed sadistically yet childlike with that life giving muscle pumping, pumping, pumping crimson faster rapidly. Panicked.


Let us create an epic fantastic tale of some dark cloaked skeletal stranger wielding a scythe standing beneath that tree luring you headlong,
and sniffing at those fumes wafting from the empty Wild Irish Rose 
bottles clinking in the floorboard.


Let us express how He tilted His attenuated Death's-head as he heard your falling grace note, and He lifted His hands in preparation for the reaping
as you (as Thomas suggests) fought against the dying of the light as you raged against that oncoming night.


That is heroic almost, that is epic,
but is that realistic? Is that what happened?
No, I'm afraid, the answer is no.


There was only you
as the tires yelped on the wet black pavement,
the sound of aluminum cans rattling in the back.


You,
and the sickly sweet stench of stale beer
spilled across the passenger seat,
half eaten sandwich flung from
under your makeshift bed.


You swerving sloppily.
You, suicidal as usual?
You moving a little too quickly.
You couldn't correct it.


That massive van plunged
from street to tree,
wrapping around an oak,
snapping metal back like rubber.


You slipped away amid the wreckage,
You lay undiscovered for days.