A Matter of Life and Death

Conversations about Death

Work of Irma Sawitri


Life passes swiftly, but not the buried arrow
Death is the finish, but doesn't end with a final whistle
Between racking one's bones, newsclips of war and daily chatter
We are flung about and we make love
and ready ourselves to face new certainties

If only a person could choose the best way to die
I would die like a fighting cock, quickly
and not in bed
You mean with your body drenched in blood?
Yes, and what's wrong with that?

I thought I saw death standing stalwart
in the doorway
I thought I heard, "She has almost no pulse"
And then, in an instant, darkness came
and everything vanished
But the next morning there was the sun,
the morning paper
And the verge of something I've never understood.

I bow and I kneel, my two hands clasped
and tumbling pray with a beggar's determination
Don't take him, I whisper, don't take him
How can I be so fickle, and am I that contemptible?

Life is the best part of death,
and you are the best part of the dream
I never knew,
Why they didn't track you down or your grave
Though I did seek myself in you
in fissures of time
Forever asking but never finding
I was dragged asunder by the hurly-burly of the world
on my side didn't history once stand
albeit with no rifle or loudspeaker in hand

I can't believe I was writing my supposed to be last night's entry. This is the problem with me when I get so much tired almost the whole day all the plans of writing never pushed through. I've been through a monotonous routine of sleep mostly every night sometimes it just leaves me fully awake in the late midnight hours.

I'm really trying to be systematic nowadays. Very much not in a technical sense, but I'm trying not take things seriously I mean taking things as it is. Apparently, I've been successful if not I'm going to leave it plainly as it is. I'm tired everything. I'm tired of being anxious when it doesn't have to do with myself.

Now I have no choice. I'll be banned from blogging until I get a new computer. Bye for now. Hang in there! I'll write more soon about it. So sad... sad.. sad.