Hear Me

It's painful to die,
And I should know,
Because I've died
Nine or ten times.

You should learn
Death's face:
Stretched taut
As rubber, sharp
Like a hook,
That sawed off chin,
A piercing eagle's
Nose, spacious
As a pelican's mouth
For the goldfish

Gutted and
Skinned, seared
By his breath --
Though death's
Not all grim eyes
And frowns, but his smile
Is an eclipsed shadow,
Strangled solar
Loons

Black -- to be sure --
As cocoa, that grin
With the succor of death:
A sweetness of sleep,
Heavy limbs,
Drooping eyes,
The nostalgia
Of becoming,
Of giving up.

To men I say
Don't fear death:
Each death
Is a passage
From lichen
Through twilight
Into new
Cerebral labyrinths;
Each craft
Is the structure of ages'
Purple patterings,
Winking fools.

Don't fear death,
For we are dying
All the time,
Seeping
In every place
Where limbs
Drop off, faces
Wrinkle, books
Decay, and flesh
Becomes ugly,
Intelligence
Rots.

Where is it all going?

The passage of time
Is as inevitable
(And perhaps prefigured in)
The tides.