Tag: Death

There is No Answer

~ Yanagi Studios

There is no specific answer
it’s not at the bottom of a bottle
or at the end of a joint
it’s not in pussy
or in any of your life’s dreams

There is no absolute solution
not in the right-left games, or god games, or death games
the dare to yourself to stare down
the precipice
denying all gods or talk of souls
shouting ‘take me black infinite!’
and then pulling yourself back from the brink
to laugh ecstatically at your heartrate

There is no answer
not in the legacy you could have
not in statues built, books written, records broken
not in your personal progress, fears overcome, grudges let go off
not even in the things you know most profound;
the people you love, your respect for living things, the clarity of orgasm,
the tranquil quiet of a lake, not in REM sleep, the euphoria of a perfect chord change,
the smiles and laughs of the innocent, the striking vibrant colours of art

There is no answer
and yet as you search still
for a thing that doesn’t exist
you can almost hear
wise jesters laughing at you
anger rises for fear they’re mocking you

But maybe they laugh because they can’t find it either
and what a mess we are all in, and they laugh with you not at you
the only answers are as real as fairy tales
or more optimistically;
fairy tales are only as real as the answers

There will be more Deaths to Come

~ Yanagi Studios

By Thomas Caterer

I see the pain in you, that I felt before too             
it does get easier, you do become desensitised
eventually you must, or else you can’t play the game anymore

What you wouldn’t give to see that smiling face once more
or to hear their laugh again
sometimes the traces of their life and love are left in your dreams
you awaken to find them slowly receding as the day’s light chases your ghosts away

Responsible parents are those who buy their children some rodent
or other small mammal when they are young
to teach them life’s rules
and with tenderness as they cry over their pet’s lifeless corpse
you say ‘sweet child these are the rules, and there will be more deaths to come’
and they will understand that their eternal ‘I’ must change too one day

What’s the Opposite of Thanatophobia?

~ Yanagi Studios

By Thomas Caterer

‘Belief in the afterlife is just a fairytale
for those afraid of death; of their own mortality’
this sounds like something that needs to be repeated
to convince oneself of its veracity

What of those afraid of life?
are they not comforted by the oft repeated mantra,
the materialists’ recruitment slogan; ‘there is nothing after death’
you can never be hurt again, you are safe and sound

You are safe from pain, and safe from having to make hard decisions
decisions that can break your heart and the hearts of others
infinite darkness sounds like the real fairytale
that in one violent instant or at the end of a steady decline
we could be free from all of the world’s suffering and all of our kind’s crimes

Could we all be let off so easily? Enough of this dreaming
Awaken even though it’s hard
Awaken even though it hurts
Awaken because it’s hard
Awaken because it hurts

Peter’s Hard Drive

~ Yanagi Studios

By A. O. Wallat

He was dying. I could tell. We all could. All Peter ever ate was chocolate and all he ever drank was red wine. His dementia was explained to me with a simple analogy:

We are all brand new computers when we’re born. We all operate in similar ways; throughout life our hard drives slowly fill with memories and we pick up programs that perform specific functions just in the same way we learn new things. Like people, sometimes computers die unexpectedly. In Peter’s case, he got a virus which was slowly deleting his files and programs, deleting his memory. By the end he could barely perform the simplest of tasks. Parts of computers might break and can be replaced just like hips and hearing but once you lose the hard drive, well, that’s it.

I found him lying slumped on the stairs. He was clutching a bottle, and red wine stained the carpet. His body was cold, lips blue. A photograph lay on the landing, of you.

Worse Things

~ Yanagi Studios

By Ernest M. Judd

The lifeless eyes of a dying lover

The screams of a mourning mother

The pangs of a lifetime of remorse

Not being able to follow your life’s true course

There are worse things than death

We fear our final journey

Scared to cross into the great beyond

To die is to enter eternal darkness they said

Society has had us all conned

Imagine living forever watching people you love die

Or imagine a world with each other where you never said goodbye

The world would have no meaning people would always discuss

Nothing to connect to the past, nothing to rival us

To live in endless torment is to be ripped apart

Imagine all the conscious beings with eternally broken hearts

When Death comes, we should welcome it as an old friend

Afterall, no matter who you are, you must come to journey’s end

A shamed man forever reviled

A mother burying her child

A person who has lost every ounce of hope

Someone who has witnessed destruction on a worldwide scope

There are worse things than death

Lost

~ Yanagi Studios

By D. S. Johnson

Voices raised and voices shook
Words were read, hymns were sung
Casting, now and then a look
Towards where she now lay

Heads were bowed and tears were shed
Hearts were bruised, hands were wrung
Deep beneath the flowerbed
We buried her away.

O, simple loves and simple joys
May, fragile, be snubbed far too young
This little girl, amongst her toys
Was hope, another day

Now joy is dead and hope is lost
Our hearts are left forever stung
With clouded minds we bear the cost
We must forever pay

Twins

~ Yanagi Studios

By Thomas Caterer

You’ll feel better when you look they say
Hands shake, knees about to buckle
You stare into the casket
Her face made-up, red lips, ghost white skin
She’s dressed for a wedding or a party
She sticks out where everyone’s dressed for a funeral

Her last words, ‘I can’t feel my leg’
The peritoneum flooded with blood
Like invaders rushing the city walls
A liver ripped in half
So violently, so casually

The twin thing, the special connection
Sensing her never again
Two sides of one coin, with one side scratched off
The tight knot in your stomach
The snake crawls along without a care
Inside of your skin
This is what emptiness feels like
Hands grip the coffin
Despite all the laughs and smiles that will hide it over the years
You know that some part of you will forever feel
Some small part of this endless emptiness
Always

A Place Where He Speaks

~ Yanagi Studios

By Thomas Caterer

How quickly the days became months and then years
My continued crisis a vile tribute to my base fears
In the immediacy of your premature death
I was confined by piteous concerns of ego
In my dull stomach a regret stirred, numbed by tears

In the final few months as we watched you decay, I played the mother
Preparing your meals, only for them to be abandoned, one after another
You shared the tales of your trips, speaking to gods in a sea of colour and light
An innate need to dispel fright, to accept death, you’d lost a friend too
We discussed the mutual fear in the dead of night, of the dark that will smother

I can only hope you found peace after your last breath
I wish that we could hug now and talk of death
As we did in dreary, rain-sodden nights in feckless England
I know we were both troubled by the silence of God
I hope you found a place where he speaks…