1.
I shall now sit here, blow my nose and think about you, mighty
Death. O great and mighty equalizer, who comes for the
wealthy and the poor alike, well that’s mostly true, but let’s
be honest here, you come earlier and more frequently
for the poor than the wealthy. Do the poor taste like
chicken? I like chicken. You kill chickens too, old hen a
heap in the yard, ready for delicious dumplings, the blind
red heads of pullets cleaved to the ground by my grandfather. You
killed him with slow pneumonia in the VA hospital, but I don’t
hold grudges, much. After all, we each have our job and what’s to be
done must
be.
2.
Good morning Death! How did you sleep? You don’t? Well no wonder
you look so drawn, worn and peaked. You should try sleep it’s really very
nice. Anyway, it puzzles me why I am thinking about you today. It’s a beautiful
day, a weekend, nothing to do beyond sit in the shade and think pleasant
thoughts, but here you are. I don’t really like when you do this. I’d rather
ponder you at 3AM, two thirds through a bottle of tequila, beneath
buckets of rain on a lonely street, at a wake, with crisp suits and rouged
cheeks or while sitting on the toilet. No offense, but thinking about you while
a deep blue sky arrays itself overhead and the May sun gently shines and a breeze from
the east teases the back of my neck is too damned depressing.
3.
O mighty End that comes for all, that pursues both the little fluffy brown birds outside
my morning window and equally the huge and the mighty, coastal redwoods, blue whale, grey
L’elephant all fall low beneath your slow gnawing or sudden swift tooth. Animal, vegetable or
crustacean, flora and/or fauna, beast and beauty, swine on par with mother
bivalve, chicken and wielders of hatchets. You are one busy dude.
How do your do it all? Outsourcing, of course! Everything is your agent, hatchet
wielder kills chicken, microbe kills hatchet wielder, lion kills antelope, Spanish
flu kills millions, man kills everything with varying degrees of efficacy. I’ll
wager favorite odds that bristlecone pines piss you off.
4.
Hello Death, it’s me Steven.
I am still thinking about you, there’s not much else do
around here on Sunday beside drink beer, assemble
an exercise bike, shovel the sidewalk, walk the dog a mile
and one half and think of you, great, almighty ungraspable you!
I suppose that’s what Sundays were meant for: exercise bikes, shoveling,
walking, meditation and beer. Uh-oh Death, the church folk are
going to be angry with me. I’d ask you take them in the
name of sweet, sweet vengeance, but you already got them
covered at a later date and I figure I better keep my mystical
favors for a better use. O Lotto!
5.
O mighty scythe master, wearer of black ratty cloak replete with
ominous hood I think of you here now on Tuesday. Have I ever
mentioned Tuesday is my favorite day? Well damn, I thought you
knew everything about your victims. O I see…well anyway…if you
can, please don’t take me home sweet home on a Tuesday, it would
result in my being extremely conflicted about my favorite day.
6.
Hey Death, while I have you, remember a while back, you stopped over, rang the bell, I
forget which of us you were coming for that dark and stormy
night, and we didn’t answer the door? Pretty funny eh? I like how you
said screw it, walked next door and killed the neighbor’s dog. That
was sweet. A body is a body. I’ll get the other the next time I’m
in the neighborhood. That’s so damned awesome.
7.
Well Death, I am through thinking about you for now. You’re busy
anyway, you said something about an appointment three towns east. Don’t worry, I’ll
be thinking about you again soon. I like to think about you. It’s occasionally
debilitating, but I am HUGE fan, a REAL fan not one of those fair weather, I ponder
death at wakes or after a friend’s rebellious left hand turns against the mind that
feeds it or 2/3 through a bottle of tequila while walking a 3AM street in a driving rain
kind of fan, a watch the last out of a 19-2 blow out, wait for the three hour rain delay for
a west coast game that will not end until 2AM or thereabouts fan, a REAL fan as in
the shortened version of FANATIC. So if possible, remember what I said about
Tuesdays, it would be sweet if you could make that happen. And say hello to your
Mom for me, O tempting, tempestuous Sin! She’s such a little minx that one, we
go way back. And oh, remember the secret knock when you come for me and hey the
neighbors have another dog bro’.
A body is a body.
You kill me.
And will.
THE MIND ATTIC 