Are you afraid to die?

[brocktonblockbust]

This is one of my favorite works by a famous old school poet Robert Graves, born London 1895, it catches the shock and horror at the realization of lifes clock as it falls into reverse on him (so he mentally tries to turn it back) but it gently slides to a halt and ceases in his own time. I love it. Its so... Gothic and atmospheric.



DOWN


Down stairs a clock had chimed two O'clock only.
Then outside form the hen roost crowing came.
Why should the shift -wing call against the clock?
Three hours from dawn? Now shutters click and knock.
And he remembers a sad superstition.

Unfitting for the sick bed .... turn aside.
Distract, divide, ponder the simple tales
That puzzled childhood; riddles,turn them over-
half riddles, answerless,the more intense.
Lost bars of music tinkling with no sense
Recur, drowning, uneasy superstition.

Mouth open he was lying,this sick man,
And sinking all the while;how had he come
To sink? On better nights his dream went flying,
Dipping sailing the pasture of his sleep,
But now (since clock and cock) had sunk him down
Through mattress bed, floor, floors beneath,stairs ,cellars,
Through deep foundations of the manse,still sinking
Through unturned earth. How had he magicked space
With inadvertent motion or word uttered
Of too close-packed intelligence (such there are)
That he should penetrate with sliding ease
Dense earth,compound of ages,granite ribs
And groins? Consider: There was some word uttered,
Some abracadabra-then, like a stage ghost,
Funereally with weeping,down, drowned,lost!

these are the haunted solemn words and perturbances of a middle-aged man realizing all-too-strikingly his clear undeniable mortality, his limit life on earth, h,s com,ng, loom,ng dem,se as a creature. thıs ıs a hauntıong-ass poem Andre, a great post mate, a hauntıng I wıll thınk of some nıghts.