"Do not stand at my grave and weep"

It's been more than a year since I last posted anything in this blog and there are all sorts of reasons for this, the main one being sheer indolence and procrastination on my part and perhaps a feeling that I don't have anything worth saying. Well, I may still not have much to say but nonetheless it is time to revive this blog before another year goes by and before it is beyond resuscitation! So here goes... 

 "Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die."

By Mary Elizabeth Frye 

I came across this beautiful but poignant poem many years ago and was myself not a little moved by its stark yet selfless message. Over the years, as I read it to myself from time to time, it has taken on an ever growing significance. Now I read it and feel I could have written it myself, so much does it echo my own thoughts and feelings. Some day it may be my own epitaph and, as such, I am indebted to the author for penning it.

With the passage of the years and the approach of 'old' age, let us say, so many things take on a different hue and look and feel different in the light of one's accumulated experiences and learnt lessons. One feels safer in the past than the future, and the present is seen to go by too swiftly. The past is the familiar, both people and things, and it takes on ever-greater importance whilst the future is downgraded or shunned altogether.

I personally have become more spiritual, more contemplative, more solemn in some ways, though I always was a deep thinker, constantly mulling things over in my head and looking for a deeper meaning in things and events. Sometimes I even come close to a sort of religiosity that I 'religiously' avoided in the past. Does increasing age bring us closer to God or at least to some kind of godless piety? Perhaps. The need for an all-powerful protector certainly becomes more pressing in many people and the consolation that such protection affords is invaluable. So... 

"Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there, I do not sleep."

A World Unknown

Across these lush green fields of my youth,

under cloud-dappled blue skies of my imagination,

beyond a distant golden horizon of my dreams,

in a land unseen by man, a world unknown to all,

in a timeless realm with no beginning and no end,

in a wondrous life that knows no death,

beyond these fields, under another sky,

further than the horizon, much further,

in another land, world, realm, life,

far from hate and spite and human strife,

where peace and calm and harmony reign,

how could man be a part of this and still be man?

A Moment in Time

The sun was coming up and a new day was dawning. Soon it would be time to make a move. The time for thinking was over, the time for acting was now. I had come for just this moment and I knew this was the place where it was to happen. The leafless tree silhouetted against the lightening sky marked the spot and the rising sun marked the time. I knew it was now or never, there would never be another chance. I had to move forward and I had to start the process.

I was frozen to the spot

I gathered my thoughts and reviewed the series of steps that would open the door to a new beginning for me. As the sun's light and intensity grew with the advancing dawn I felt its energy and power and knew this was the moment to make my move. If I failed to opt for renewal I would fall back into darkness and despair and it would all come to an end for me. If I failed to go forward into renewal, I would not be able to go back into the shadows of the half-life that had been mine till now. The failure would destroy me and I would be left with nothing, I would become nothing.

I stood there, and looked around me, surveying what I was leaving behind, which gave me even greater resolve to push ahead. I turned back to what lay before me and seemed to beckon me. I was sure that the place was pinpointed by the hibernating tree, that the time was marked by the sun's position on the horizon, and I felt a restless energy coursing through my body. This was it. There was no time to lose, the moment had come, the window of opportunity was a very narrow one and delay would be fatal. I took a deep breath, stiffened myself for what was to come, focused on the tree in the near distance, and stepped forward... and that’s when it all started to happen for me.

That was a long time ago now, and now as you read this, I may already be beyond this world.

The End of Shane the Shit

Feeling like shit, Shane crumpled onto the damp park bench and wondered what he was going to do with his shit-life now.


He’d been sacked from his shit-job as public lavatory attendant because he didn’t give a shit for the work, consistently failing to clean around the top inside of the toilet bowl where all sorts of shit had a way of building up; he’d been physically thrown out of his shitty bedsit by his Kurdish shit of a landlord for falling behind with the rent; his ugly little shit of a North  Korean girlfriend had unceremoniously dumped him after a couple of months for being a useless piece of shite; he had no family to speak of as he'd never managed to stay in a relationship for long enough to sire one because somehow he just couldn't get his shit together; he was now past fifty and balding and looked as appealing as a desiccated shit-turd; and he had lost all the shitty friends he ever had because everyone found him tedious and boring and not worth a shit!

The only way out of all this shit-mess was to lie down and die right there and then on that cold dank park bench with a pile of newly-deposited dog-shite a few feet away. What stopped him from doing this so far was the idea that it would probably be a long and painful shit of a process and, in any case, some cop would most likely move him on or slap him with a shit of a fine for vagrancy! And that was the last piece of shit he needed before bowing out of this shitty life. 


But the reality was that he couldn’t afford shit like lethal drugs, didn’t have a shitty gun, couldn't stomach the idea of stabbing himself and bleeding to death or dangling from a rope round his neck, his feet thrashing around, gradually having the shit-life squeezed out of him (while he shitted himself from loss of control of his bowels), and he had a paranoid shit of a fear of heights, so throwing himself off a cliff or some shit like that was too shit-scary to even think about, as he knew the descent itself might knock the shit out of him before he dropped like shit onto the ground and he would die several times over like the useless piece of shite he was!

Hungry and undecided, he hauled himself up from the bench and headed for the nearest McDonald’s restaurant to eat some shit and think more clearly on a full stomach, but as he started to cross the busy main road, dodging the traffic, some shit bastard of a driver mustn't have seen him and literally tore straight into Shane the Shit, knocking the shit out of him for good! Shane lay there unmoving, killed on the spot and as dead as shit, and for all anyone cared he might as well have been another oversized piece of freshly laid dog-shite. But at least Shane had had a result, be it more by accident than design, and was now done with his mega-shit of a life and on his way to Shit-Heaven.!

Amen to that…