12.13.2018 “may i, have this danse?”
I bow unto mother dearth
sing upon these crooked bones
dance the steps macabre,
delight in the resonance of these tones
trance in steps of the coming close
rejoice this pure finality,
party hats as wigs up on these skulls
in procession to the grave
a pope, an emperor, a king
and the child same
forgotten not the plowman’s plot
all rapture this captive lot
coffin’s bed, earthen gate
into the final throes
as the sun has shed
‘memento mori!’ the cheers
‘memento mori!’ the lyrics on praising tongues
with feverish exhaustion sung
the night, my revelers, was never young
notes… a good amount to unpack here, if you don’t want my explanations and thought levels stop reading… ok, now just you and me left talking, this is based on the danse macabre, a movement, well, a thought that became a movement back in the 1400s that spanned well over a couple of hundred years, the catharsis or the pinnacle thought being that we are all going to die, true enough, but it embodied modesty with theme, from a child to a king there is no escape from the ultimate end so why not party on dudes ! well.. maybe more elegant than that… the whole “pope” line is based on art of the day which typically showed the five figures I describe, note I use “a” and “the” in spots, “the child” is both a reference to literally children and also jesus christ (“the” child), the fifth member of the party is the laborer hence my plowman’s line (another biblical reference as well), I also am using double meaning in “plot” and “lot” in the following lines, ‘memento mori’ in latin is “remember you must die”, pretty much the rallying cry of the danse macabre movement, and the last line is my play on “the night is young” and also “the good die young” (revelers), the night has been there all along, and with that I bid you a good night, or a good day, this poem came to me and made me full with muse, that nimble minx, thank you my dear… for this.
music… going deep doom metal here… no death vocals, just the grinding forward sound of life, the constant sound, this song sums it up with sweeping piano and languished guitars…
Shades of My Garden 