Archive
01/25/10
In My Dust
Had you told me, when I was five or an adolescent Or when I graduated trade school or retired from my myriad careers Or was suffering the losses of my sixty-nine wives And the deaths of my offspring more numerous than the stars, That I'd still be alive at 898, Despite bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Parkinson's, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, bulimia, chronic constipation, Stage IV non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, human immunodeficiency virus, Alcoholism, hebephrenic schizophrenia, anorexia, rabies, polio, German measles, chlamydia, PTSD, senile/solar lentigines, halitosis, Somehow coping far beyond the ravages of senescence, Extricating myself, deftly, from each day's little deaths, I, with exasperated intransigence, dumbfounded resolve, Would have repudiated your outrageously insane prophecy, Told you, to your face, with unabashed, venomous candor, That you were full of shit and that you should go fuck yourself, Such would have been my stupefaction Over the altogether impossible prospect of outliving myself.
But now that I've lived in the valley of the shadow of death, for ages, And found that it's not only a suitable habitation, With all the appurtenances and amenities I enjoyed in youth (Reading lamps, recumbent bicycles, Barcaloungers, condoms, Shoes, wine collections, hot tubs, money, Shop-Vacs, Convection ovens, complete runs of Playboy, toilets, food), But that I'm actually able to neighbor, in immutable comfort, Among the living dead (none of whom comes close to my centuries), Win such respect as to have become their patriarch, Their Methuselah, Noah, Adam, Seth, Lamech, or Shem, I've begun to appreciate the freedoms that accrue to hyperlongevity, Such as not having to show emotion, talk, eat, bathe, Clear out my gastrointestinal-tract impactions, Dunk my dentures and glass eyes in fungicide, scrape off my scabs, Move, see, taste, touch, hear, smell, just breathe, exist, be. In fact, I sense that I may, indeed, have outdistanced mortality To such a degree that eternity may not be a long-enough span To contain my destiny to bury God Himself, in my dust.
01/25/10
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