Samurai
I’d like to die like a samurai in battle,
fighting for a worthy cause.
I’d like to live like one in the certain awareness
that death could come at any time.
The longer I live, the closer I come, the more
I beat my own hopeless drum.
The Charge of the Light Brigade immortalized
in poetry, futility on a pedestal, a prelude to
World War, industrialized hopelessness.
There was the Lost Generation after WW one,
the Beats after WW two…it was something
that they knew.
Paradise on earth avoids us except for the few
that found it by accident or trained their minds,
saw through the illusion of existence, what the
samurai knew.
Is that why they were determined enough to cut
their stomachs open in final sacrifice, or was it a
cultural thing to do?
I wonder if any/many ran away instead…I bet
there were a few.
It hurts to die, which is probably good to keep
survival going, humanity on track.
Canada makes it easy to die: one hundred thousand
euthanized so far, government sanctified, but what
do Canadians really have to live for, a wag might say…
it’s cold up there and the fishing isn’t that good anymore.
On the other hand, the Inuit survive…I doubt they ask
“What for?”
“Death is real, comes without warning, this body will
be a corpse.” might have come from the samurai, but
it’s actually a Buddhist reminder…so the samurai didn’t
have a corner on that market.
People here notice me but don’t bother me, like motorists
passing a bad accident slowly, looking for a glimpse of gore.
A mystery, a tragedy, entertainment in misfortune, I find it
curious that the “special forces” in movies get so quickly
taken down by the heroes, cannon fodder as was coined before.
Today we’re entertained by death even more,
which inures us to its reality.
Don’t shoot the messenger.
