Today I bid myself Goodbye [poem]
Today, I bid myself a firm goodbye.
I thought I’d better get it over with
instead of waiting calmly till the end
when everything I think I am or was
will have dissolved: Confetti whispers
dissipated on the icy wind of death —
my final breath a sigh of unfulfilled
and thenceforth nameless dreams.
If first I say goodbye to self (thus die)
then live my last remaining days
as if my “I” was dead, I shall not live
like most (as if I’ll never die), but live
instead as if I’ve no investment here
and thus be free from fear; for death
itself by then will be my normal state.
“You’ll soon be someone else”, I hear
you say, in that presumptuous and
glibly knowing way we parrot what
we’ve read inside some guru’s book
and take for granted without ever
raising questions in our heads about
what really happens when we’re dead.
So many say when speaking of their
‘previous’ lives “I was an Indian chief”
or “Prince from Egypt”, “Princess”,
“Shaman”, “Queen” or “King” or other
oh so high and mighty blissful thing.
(How funny that they never were a
vagabond or common thief or serial
killer, child molester causing grief!).
None of us has ever been another one.
We have only ever been ourselves
within the life we’re living here & now.
At death, whatever else remains
of what you were before you were
the you who thinks you’re you
may well become somebody else
but that’s not you nor cannot ever be.
For you — by which I mean the you
you think you are right now inside
that busy head of yours with all those
loud accumulated memories and
engrammatic traces of experience —
will be no more when death in all its
scythely glory kicks upon your door.
And so, today, I duly bid myself goodbye.
I am of such small consequence that
it matters not a jot the how or when or
where or now or then that I should die
in all my stench decay and degradation.
We’re all already dead, for time is false.
(& here I have to smile from ear to ear
when I consider how we waltz and
strut our silly way to death, imagining
ourselves to be invincible, not realising
that our every breath could be our last).
Today, it’s true, I bid myself goodbye.
And if you were to kindly ask me why,
I’d look you longsome in the eye and
speak of Spring, the Moon both full
and new, a window with a country view;
of beauty, twinkly stars and flowers; of
velvet skin and wetsome kisses lasting
hours; of laughter, song and subtlety, the
sight of sunrise on the sea; of glances
in delight exchanged between some
lovely shining you & ever-lonesome me;
of lovebirds penetrating, lost in ecstasy.
And as I spoke of all those fecund things
(and more) you’d see me smiling fadely,
no doubt floating crownful, jaded, on
some distant shore as breakers dressed
as horses white and snorting spray had
come to carry what was truly me away.
.
.
© Alan Morrison, 2015
The Naked Troubadour 