The cessation of a heartbeat,
a quiet passage perhaps in bed,
accident, suicide, murder foul -
Death is in the living inbred
The living are not slow to learn
the short lesson of Life's threadlike spin
woven into a fine mesh of cloth
only the scissors genuine
Mycologists hunt DNA
in fungi cells on plates of agar --
from children who tear their toys apart,
they’re not removed so very far
Medical men must needs define
that they see as part of nature's plan;
sophists argue the implications
of organ transplants man to man
Boredom’s the root of all evil
The Devil works on an idle mind
and moulds in demoniacal form
all empty heads that he can find
Death gets so knotted up with Life
that all becomes boredom in the main
and if not an intellectual
one simply has to use one's brain
Meaning’s sought in the meaningless
Frustration then the end of research
A jump, rope, knife, gun, poison, drugs
and Life again left in the lurch
Those who will neither yield nor join
must needs beat (out the living daylights?)
and murderers classically make plans
during the long, dark, wintry nights
The foul, bloody, unnatural
are not to Halloween's night confined
Though it is light outside, the darkness
is in the night-time of the mind
© GERALD ENGLAND
Composed: Glasgow, 12th February 1967
Publications
1993 International Poetry (USA)
2000 Monas Hieroglyphica (UK)
2003 Chanticleer Magazine (UK)
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