from Lives of the Dead: An Epic: Chapter Three

Slowly, slowly the lines of the dead man’s face vanished,

the shape of his body gradually shrank,

nature carved the dead man to the style

and single mold of all the dead from way back.

And the remaining frame of his lips locked with the dust

and hid in the earth surrounding it

and the shamed smile of the man gradually dimmed

and melted in the thick of the earth.

And the dead man forgot his ignominy and forgot the Shah of Iran

and the minister of Trade and Treasury and the matchmaker Venus Katz,

and all the ends of evening newspaper became a sticky paste

and mixed with the universe’s general rubbish

and the dead man who cried as he was lowered in the hole and wept for many days

was already quiet now, faithfully devoted to the process of his death,

a dedicated student of the nature of decomposition and the kidney,

innocent and untouched by any contact with the life over his head,

a retired righteous man, silent monk,

purifying in the silence of his death,

and his brows raised a little in an expression of spiritual uplift.

And with the sinking of his life’s filth and clarification of his soul,

the dead man listened to his innards

and there was silence, complete and absolute was the silence,

and in the middle of the quiet, the heart of stillness, like a boat

on a section of congealed lake water,

he heard a faint silent keen, the keen of a little boy,

a kind of peep that was folded and cramped in the inmost part of his soul

so many years, like the first cheep crushed

in the breast of the chick hidden in the egg,

for is it not the eternal keen, that is not drawn and is not drained,

the keen of the boy to be hung upon the neck of his Dad.

For what more is left in us when we peel away—

the paper and the wife and a crust of bread?

Being held up in our father’s arms, the frightened face pressed

in between hot neck, smelling of fresh soap

and the collar of his fresh pressed shirt.

There, in that place, a spot we’ve known, a warm hollow

between the neck and armpit, a little island of tranquility.

This island is lost, but we still search in every person

for arms that will lift us up,

in every face—the glow of our father that floods

with love’s dew our tears.

All of the people, from one year old to seventy

whether alive or dead, all need Daddy.

Here’s the hooker standing on the corner at nightfall

and here’s the old man going up to her.

She’s an orphan. Though she has breasts and thighs,

and apparently something more useful, still

her eyes dart around, clearly: she has no Daddy.

And the old man, it goes without saying, he too is orphaned.

And two orphans meet, both a little scared,

they fix a price, they go in the yard,

he drops his pants and she—her dress,

and an orphan manhood rises—falls—

where are the uplifting arms of Daddy!

—and spread before it an orphan crotch and in another minute,

the great sorrow of orphanhood enfolds

a dozen (or fewer) feeble thrusts

like an orphan’s Kaddish on a morning of Tevet,

and as an orphan cop sneaks in the yard

and catches the two orphans by the neck

and leads them to the patrol car

there they sit, an enclosed trio,

three orphans in the silence of their ache,

without knowing what and where and how,

and the paddy wagon’s siren wails out the great sob:

here ride three people that lost their Daddy.

And the dead man lay on his couch, and the mold of a skeleton

was already drawn through the torn ends of his flesh,

and his face is turned on high, expectantly, and waits for his Daddy.

In your love I trust, Daddy, I know

that you will come when I call. And as I trust in death

and know he’ll come, all the more

I trust my Daddy, for who

if not my Daddy stands behind the gate of death

and in his hand a suitcase holding all my summer clothes,

swimming trunks and towel,

and in his other hand a lunch pail, and in it a buttered roll and pear

and in the breach he stands, my Dad, and waits for me and smiles:

What, didn’t you know that after death there is a summer camp

and God is the lifeguard?

And in another town, in another graveyard, old

lay the Daddy of the dead man, all skeleton

a veteran resident of the world of carrion and shame

and from his exposed skull beams a horrified grin.

For he too, the Daddy, is an orphan, he too has no Daddy,

and he too wants, why not, to hide his face in his father’s neck

and find there the consolations of his life and death.

And his father too has a Daddy, a Daddy.

And all the fathers are sons, and when you peel back their skins

and see they’re little children, and all dream of being raised up

to the soap-washed fresh neck flesh of Daddy.

O miserable dead, what will you do if you exit your graves,

climb one over another, orphan over his sire,

and form a motley chain of skeletons, a ladder of bones,

of sons and fathers whose head will disappear into the clouds?

And how will you console one another, for when the father hangs

his two hands on his father’s throat, how will he handle his son?

Who will console whom? Who lie in the bosom of whom? Many

consolation-hungry stiffs will quarrel over a bosom?

And where is the bosom? Where is the neck? Did anybody ever catch a whiff

here even once of the smell of fresh soap?

O miserable dead, this isn’t California,

this is the dark grave and this is death!

So shall a son leave his father and mother

and man leave his wife and cleave unto his death.

And the dead man saw how his father betrayed him.

And his father’s skull grinned its horrified grin.

And with it grinned his father’s father’s skull, and grinned

his fathers’ fathers to the last generation.

And as the audience’s smile gleams in the dark of an auditorium

at seeing the threadbare comedy (not a smile of pleasure,

but a smile of delight at the misery of actors embarrassing themselves)

so, from the darkness of their cellar graves, shone the horrified grins

and skulls upon skulls upon skulls rolled in silent mirth

at the sight of the eternal son, his foolish hope to be taken to his father’s bosom,

and his bitter cry in the hole, this is the eternal cry, that rolls endlessly

gladdens the heart, each in his turn, of the audience of hole residents.

With death the bonds of family are loosed