By Robyn Hitchcock
Hear Alan Rickman read this poem here.
If death is not the end, I'd like to know what is.
For all eternity we don't exist,
except for now.
In my gumshoe mac, I shuffled to the clifftop,
Stood well back,
and struck a match to light my life;
And as it flared it fell in darkness
Lighting nothing but itself.
I saw my life fall and thought:
Well, kiss my physics!
Time is over, or it's not,
But this I know:
Life passes through us like the blade
Of bamboo growing through the prisoner pegged down in the glade
It pierces your blood, you screaming head -
Life is what happened to the dead.
Forever we do not exist
Except for now.
Life passes through us like a beam
Of charcoal green - a golden gleam,
The opposite of how it seems:
It's not you that goes through life
- life is the knife that cuts your dream
Around the seam
And leaves you turned on in the stream, laughing with your mouth
open,
Until the stream is gone,
Leaving you cracked mud,
Not even there to be absent,
From the heartbeat of a dying fish.
In bed, upstairs, I feel your pulse run with the clock
And reach your hand
And lock us with our fingers
As if we were bumping above the Pole.
Yet I know by dawn
Your hand will be dry bone
I'll have slept through your goodbye,no matter how long I wake.
Life winds on,
Through Cheri and Karl who can no longer smell chocolate,
Or see with wonder wind inflate the sail,
Or answer mail
Life flies on
Through Katy who was Catherine but is bound for Kate
Who looks over her shoulder at the demon Azmodeus,
And sees the Daily Mail
(I clutch my purse. I had it just now.)
Life slices through
The frozen butter in the Alpine wreck.
(I found your photo upside down
I never kissed a girl so long,
So long, so lovely or so wrong)
Life is what kills you in the end
And I can cry
But you won't be there to be sorry
You were made of life
For ever we did not exist
We woke and for a second kissed.
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I posted a review of Voyager's "Tuvix", which remains as frustrating as ever, and I had dinner with my parents and Adam before Adam took off to see a midnight showing of The Room, one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Plus we took a walk, during which we saw bunnies and chatted with a couple of neighbors. And in the evening we watched the Heroes Reborn episode we missed on Thursday; I'm bummed the show won't return next year.
Otherwise my day was still about mourning Alan Rickman. Adam watched Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with us while we were working on our laptops in the afternoon (it remains over the top but utterly enjoyable, especially all the Sheriff in the extended version). Cheryl watched January Man with us at night (which remains mediocre in every way, even the cast can't help, not enough Alan). Here, something happy: National Zoo pandas!
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