PRE MORTEM PILLOW THOUGHTS ON LOSS    (10-19-1995, Galveston Island, Texas)

i lay my head down
upon your cold pillow
but at the moment
you are no longer here
i can t help but wonder
if this is what my shroud
might feel like
after i m gone and no longer here too
that is
if
the so called dead
can even still feel at all
i wonder if my own great beyond
might feel and seem as calm
as empty and peaceful as this
such a rare place
of no more mental thinking
sounds so relatively good
almost too good to possibly be true at all
where there will be nothing there
to remind me
of the life i once  at least had
except for your scent
which still faintly lingers here
on your now vacant abandoned pillow
only a still much too quickly fading
resonant  sensory echo of you
in your so sudden  shocking
now permanent absence
from our once shared
but now from my own
presently lost  broken hearted and numbed
new singular life here alone
will it sound this quiet and still
in the crematorium
or perhaps upon
some open air funeral pyre
which lies in patient wait
to eventually and openly
receive and transform
the cold  hollow  empty  lifeless shell
of my by then
completely lifeless  soulless
physical being s remains
in saying my final goodbyes to myself here
perhaps if even a bit too prematurely
will the fact of my being dead at that point
somehow possibly cool
the all consuming  fiery licking flames
hungry consumption of me
and will it somehow even be
mysteriously soothing to me
while so fiercely licking my physical body s
flesh from my bones
ahhhhh  all the ridiculously unnecessary
traditional  human formalities
long held and kept in place culturally
as an absolute  profit industry necessity
for something so fundamentally natural
organically and spiritually
so simple and easy
as one s wondrously transcendent
and enlightening
inevitable  ineffable soul s return trip s
mysterious  ultimate  final journey
of complete letting go
going home
of one s lapsed life s  final deposit
like a pop sickle s quick meltage
out in any hot summer s sun and wind
such true liberation  at long last
still silently beckons me on
as i continue to hear  feel and sense
it s ever persistent  steady  inner call
only now more so through intense incineration
rather than through burial s
much slower process of  organic decomposition
which doesn t sound  nor seem to me now
so sad  nor quite as frighteningly fearful anymore
the more poetically eloquent last act
of my eternal spirit and soul s
consciously pre chosen  final quick exit s
newly evolved  spiritually preferred way out
through the elegant dance of wild leaping flames
non attached  transformational conversion
of this temporal me
which of course
i will no longer be by then
so freely and thoroughly released
my final vanishing act will be
released through thousands of flickering sparks
rapidly spiraling upwards
into  through and towards
night s twinkling stars above
reduced to nothing more  at last
than soon forgotten smoke and ash
in death s deathless
recyclic return
in which and wherein
the only thing physically left of me
will ultimately be
even further released
and beautifully reunited once again
elementally rejoined with wind  sea  soil and sand
upon and into our sweet mother earth s
wild  boundless seas and oceans
or even returned to our precious
living  conscious earth s
equally sacred lands again
for i finally can more clearly see here
and realize here now at long last
that  that
was all i physically ever was
and presently  even here now
physically and elementally  still yet am
but beyond all these newly
just arisen  loosely sorted out
much more introspectively self reflective
innermost feelings and thoughts
back to where my sense of self and selfless being
is perhaps overindulgently
tuning in a bit too far and deeply tonight
than i should be going
i presently here now still realize
that i am still yet here
and still yet alive
more or less
in my mind at least
only now
all by myself  all alone again
after these last six long  mostly wonderful
but health wise
equally nightmarishly terrifying years
of all my most desperate  collective efforts
at and of simply  yet often times futilely
fighting and constantly just trying
to stay and keep some semblance
of pretending to
and of appearing to be
at least somewhat still half alive
during our six  most existentially challenging years
of our overall mostly happy day s memories
of our living and being together
as life partners
as each other s closest family
as each other s best friends
but back here now in my head
presently where i still am
still trying to deal with  cope and adjust to
all these newly upturned feeling s
much darker  more sullen  insecure thoughts
worries  fears  and uncertain doubts
all i need right now the most
is just some soft  comforting place
to lie down on
to lay my so weary  long troubled head down upon
where i can more completely let go for now
and temporarily  yet fully surrender
my being  my self  my life and this world
i and we all still live in
and which now feels to me
more than ever  at this point
that i ve now known for far too long
for it s living vortex s energy just keeps on
increasingly pulling me harder and harder
leaving me now feeling so exhaustively tired
from my so futilely now  near constant struggles
at trying to reconnect all the scattered  lost dots
and all the hopelessly ruptured
long broken circles of my life
which once for so long
seemed  felt and were
so much more complete
unruptured  more whole and unbroken
in my so distant  perhaps irreperably now
too long  completely broken  life
where here presently now tonight
it seems and feels the only thing
i need  desire and long for most
is this and this alone  for now
just give me a pillow
without your still lingering scent
to lay my now much too long
life wearied head and heart down upon
so i can finally let go
and transcendently begin to move on from
at long last
here yet once again in my life
for i m so very tired and burnt out on
all my seemingly never ending
soul wearied  desperate longing here
where i m presently now still feeling
ever increasingly  more and more hopelessly lost
in the hollow  aching  haunted shadow
and the one way  now empty heart sadness
of your now new  forever  true goneness
in which i ve already physically and spiritually
grown so tired of from detrimentally and negatively
feeling  thinking and dreaming about
while so relentlessly and futilely
only running on empty here now yet again
on the same old  redundant
subconscious mind gear  stuck pattern
which has always seemed and inevitably proven
time and time again in my past
to never work out at all
by and from solely trying
to only run solely on and upon
the toxic fumes of and from
all the old  still stubbornly lingering on
hauntingly echoing ghosts of my past
wherein and against all odds
even here in my most achingly desolate
lonesomeness tonight
where even now
i only just now realized
that i am still yet here
and still yet alive
but in a most illogical of ways
wherein i m now suddenly aware
that i m not even
consciously  nor subconsciously
striving  nor trying
to cling on at all
anymore
but now i m rather just only
surrendering  accepting
and consciously choosing
to simply go with the flow
of this ever wondrously mysterious
still ongoing  experiential ride s
truly ineffable  spiritually transcendent
necessary soul journey
i m still on
just as we
each and all
universally still are
likewise here now
as well