not dead. yet.

 

I wrote this poem in 2018, long before COVID. At the time, I couldn’t come up with a title. I finally decided on “not dead. yet.”

With a tip of my hat (and mask!) to life and living, here’s hoping it’s not COVID that takes me down…

not dead. yet.

© 2018 punkie

 

no one would know
if i dropped dead tomorrow
popped my cork, bit the dust,
dissolved in the sorrow

maybe i’ll choke
on a small chicken bone
with no heimlich to save me
‘cause i dine on my own

i could faint and fall over
and crack my head open
not the kind of demise
for which i’d been hopin’

there’s always a chance
i’ll collapse in the heat
freeze in the winter,
eat a bad piece of meat

i could drown in the bathtub
trip down the stairs
fall on a knife
would anyone care?

friends are appalled
at the things i assay
“god forbid, stop it now
you’re gonna ruin my day!”

“don’t be so morbid
don’t cry and don’t moan
after all we’re connected,”
they say over the phone

but a vein in my brain
in the night might explode
an organ inside
without reason corrode

I could drink something poison
succumb to the flu
if i die in my sleep
will the neighbours feel blue?

my heart could give in
while I’m out for a walk
or like in ‘the birds’
be attacked by a flock

the folks on my face book
chime in when they can
offer friendly advice
then sternly command

“why do you think
these thoughts so destructive?
focus instead
on stuff that’s constructive!”

but we don’t get to choose
the way that we go
could be face down
in fresh fallen snow

and when you’re alone
you may never be found,
be forgotten, forsaken,
as the world goes around

so if you should find me
in a decomposed state
forewarned is forearmed
your visit’s too late!

 

© 2018 Susan Macaulay. I invite you to share my poetry and posts widely, but please do not reprint, reblog or copy and paste them in their entirety without my permission. Thank you.

a nursery rhyme for violent times

even in prison there’s space between the bars