Death, you’re more successful than America, <br />even if we don’t choose to join you, we do. <br />I’ve just become aware of this conscription <br />where no one’s marble doesn’t come up; <br />no use carving your name on a tree, exchanging vows <br />or not treading on the cracks for luck <br />where there’s no statistical anomalies at all <br />& you know not the day nor the hour, or even if you do <br />timor mortis conturbat me. No doubt we’d <br />think this in a plunging jet & the black box recorder <br />would note each individual, unavailing scream <br />but what gets me is how compulsory it is— <br />‘he never was a joiner’ they wrote on his tomb. <br />At least bingeing becomes heroic & I can see <br />why the Victorians <br />so loved drawn out death-bed scenes: <br />huddled before our beautiful century, they knew <br />what first night nerves were all about.<br /><br />John Forbes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/death-an-ode/
