i wish i could unwish myself

content to be nothing¹

to exist independent of identity

beyond life and death²

with no title to future being¹

to never have been

but i grasp

at perpetuation¹

the mechanicall preservations¹ of words and images 

artefacts and physical acts 

digital spaces 

meaning 

moments

the monuments of memories

i am my own legacy project³

i don’t want to die

i don’t want to join the nations of the dead¹ 

but i don’t want to hope for eternity either

i am the urne

i don’t want to be put in one

i don’t want to be a relique

a stuffy antique ghost

some lame spook sitting on a shelf

no need to decorate dying days⁴ no need

for artificial mementos to minde [us] of our graves¹

let us let that pure flame

that invisible sun

flicker and flare

and simply¹ burn

out

that coffin

that urne

my futile project     

blind faith

in the fallacy and fantasy of form⁵

lines

in polished sand

ego

this is

was 

me 

me and my honourable and courageous and oh so important deeds

me and my beautiful mirror

and this is everyone else^2,5,6

time hath no wings

makes dust of all things¹

but fundamentally nothing exists

so where is that dust to cling⁷

who has the courage to let it all go⁵

not me

not yet

so if i have to make a choice of this way

sir thomas

then water it is

for as you say it is the smartest grave¹

thale’s originall of all things⁸

and when the time comes the

window let go dive⁹

the exhale into the earth¹⁰

light up the morning sky

anon funeral pyre¹¹

when the time comes

to hand my handed down bones back¹⁰

let me follow the ichthyophagi

the nations of aegypt

and affect the sea as [my] grave¹

vast white cap rage

and deep dark blue roar of unknowne

let me be swept 

and swallowed up 

by its velvet depth

restore [my] body’s debt¹

this noble animal¹ was ‘ere

until he was not

let me vanish

hide and be hidden and again become one 

with this infant earth¹

this universe

still an urne unto us.

NOTES

1. Browne | ‘Urne-Buriall’
2. Dass | ‘Remember Be Here Now’
3. Benjamin | ’Eternity Projects’
4. Blind Melon | ‘Soup’
5. Watts | ‘In My Own Way’
6. Powell in Hutcherson | ‘John A. Powell Builds A Bigger We’
7. Hui-neng in Watts | ‘The Way Of Zen’
8. Aristotle | ‘Aristotle Metaphysics’ 
9. Tibble | ‘Poukahangatus’
10. Dawn | ‘In My Bones I Find My Living Ancestors’
11. Tweti  | ‘The Sensualist’