Planned Departures

        Globally, Over 1 million people a year die by suicide - WHO

He punched the cruise control, undid his safety belt and aimed for the tree

          He lived several moments, merged with the wreckage and branches

The car idled in the garage, a hose running from its exhaust into the window

          The CD changer played on and the dead man spilled a bit of red wine

The shotgun he had fired with his toes lay near his crumpled torso

          The inside of his head splattered and misted the wall behind him

The last step took him over the cliff and the acceleration energized him

          Fully awake hitting the rocks he never made another movement

He beat his wife, finished the case of beer and then called the police

          He threatened them with his empty shotgun until they riddled him with bullets

He saved up his pain meds, though he suffered, yet he remained quite silent

          One evening he took them all and drowned quietly in his own vomit

After drinking for hours they roared off upon their powerful new jet skis

          The force of their impact killed him even before his friend drowned

He overate and then smoked, drank heavily and laid about for many years

          The crushing pain in his chest came one day, like a prize in the mail

She lay in the now cold bathtub water stained pink with her blood

          Her wrists were neatly slashed and her shapely legs were nicely shaved

She said her goodbyes to each of the family as they gathered all around her

         She willed herself to be gone and simply ended the pain and the weakness

He was strapped into the explosives through a mumbling of prayers and praise

          After the Mullah triggered his flight by cell phone, his family celebrated

Lost in a stoned depression his subconscious purposely ignored a dump truck

          His shabby little car was crushed as it ground him into a juicy pulp

Left for another, she shortly stepped off the platform just in front of a train

          There was not much left to clean up and the funeral was very small

Sealing dry cleaning bags over his head, he sat quietly and turned quite blue

          Condensation had formed by the time his youngest child entered the room

With a noose round his neck attached to the ceiling he kicked away the chair

          He struggled gagging in the air for a five minute eternity

He strapped on a great rock, tied up his hands, then jumped into the water

          he took a breath at ten feet, choked and inhaled but one more time

She overdosed not quite on purpose but surely not purely by accident

          The attendants discussed the fine augmentation work done on her breasts

Fortified with a quart of vodka, he vowed to end this Winter in the snow

          He was not cold for long and soon he fell asleep and did not awaken

Poised high over the bay with a strong tide rushing out far below, he leaped

          Crabs, mollusks and scavenging fish cleaned him up pretty quickly

Unable to stand his continuing success, he put his small plane into a tail spin

          I read that he was a good pilot on a clear day, without mechanical issues

Facing life with no possibility of parole he dissed the leader of the blacks

          One day later they knifed him to ribbons underneath the showers

Depressed over a lack of attention, her suicide attempts kept her alive

          As a fatal overdose overtook her, she realized her mistake

Strung out on the last of his crank he began to mix another batch

          The explosion and fire burnt his toothless face beyond all recognition

Flushed with an early success the guitarist bought his first new motorcycle

          His long golden hair was matted with the contents of his skull

At midnight of the shortest day the medicine man finished his great circle

          His people evinced little sadness as he was now with their ancestors

Far from any trail he found a spot beneath a spruce facing south with a grand view

          He took the pills and waited for the crows, hoping never to be found

Growing Younger Every Day

To preserve the loveliness of your once-bonnie brown hair

          you dyed it a color that nature never knew

To restore your lovely figure

          you spent thousands on surgery that quickly proved worthless

To combat the wrinkles, without success

          you smeared on expensive creams and got botoxed as well

To renew the vigor you only imagined you once knew

          you swallowed many costly, yet unproven supplements

To mitigate your unwanted increase in maturity

          you piled on the large and expensive gold jewelry

To remain attractive and appealing within the confines of your mind

          you financed new, fancier cars as often as possible

To try and become sleek and fit and to lose the guilt from your awful diet

      You drove twice a week to spend 20 minutes watching TV strolling on a treadmill

To weigh little more than you did as a teen seemed like a great triumph

          Ignoring the fact that wrinkled fat is far bulkier than lean muscle

To combat your ever-lightening skin

          you sought out the sun and attained that leathery, reptilian look

To watch your weight and retain your appeal

          you exposed every bone in your anorexic face

To compensate for the diets which quite utterly failed

          your forced your hair to grow bigger, stiffened up with industrial gel

To keep pace with your rapidly fading sense of smell

          you sprayed on ever more sickeningly sweet but costly perfume

To realize the full creative human potential locked there within you

          you took a six week self-renewal course and went on a few horseback rides

To renew your attractiveness after being dumped and rejected

          you joined a gym and lost 10 pounds til you found another chump

To try and hide the wrinkles, the sags and your bags

          you troweled on many coats of concrete-like beauty plaster

To keep from having to face the void that so clearly beckoned

          you learned to cope by blankly flipping channels

To have it all you burned both ends as you stewed in the middle

          your were worn out too soon and then dried up way too fast

What Would You Do

What would you do if you learned it would only be a year

          Could you do everything and then sum it all up, if it were so very near

What if right now you knew you had to leave in just 30 days

        How much would you try to experience and what goals would you raise

Would you find something different in the beauty of every sunrise

          Would you note all the last times like each was good for a prize

Could you possibly place everything in order and be prepared to unwind

          Perhaps you might simply determine to fight and to somehow survive

Suppose that you were convinced you would be dead by tomorrow

          If the colors seemed so much brighter, would that be simply from sorrow

Should you rush about trying to do all the things you had promised

         Or maybe spend time dwelling on something you knew you had missed

Would you consider their memories of you and try to change their tone

          Would you bother to get rid of those many things you still own

Consider that the plane is falling straight down and gathering speed

          How could you prepare yourself in that awful panic, terror and need

How much time would you ask for, if it were forced to be decided

          At that crucial moment, by what principles would you be guided

Would you even bother to watch your beloved TV anymore

          Would you pray for salvation or consider the void as never before

Who would you contact and what might you say

          What affairs would you attend to and which ones would you let lay

What should you do about your children’s future

          How might your spouse do without you to help and to script her

Would you sadly realize that you had wasted so much time

          Would you mainly miss daily actions of the most ordinary kind

Are there those you would tell the things to, that you have always known

          Would you expire inside or outside, far away, or in your own home

Would you keep on working until they carried you away

          Could you remain quiet or would you tell anyone who would stay

Would you turn to religion and let faith be your true guide

          Would you just end it all early and leave the priests feeling denied

Should your family interrupt their lives as you are expiring

          How could they understand the way your neurons are rewiring

Does it make sense to ease your anguish with pain medication and religion

          Why bother to keep up with your physical education

In this strange light, what message would you prepare for your children

          Should you spend money furiously on dreams to try and fulfill them

Would you sleep dark nights through or lie awake counting every moment

          Could you draw any meaning looking back on the blur and the foment

Should you take some time and write out your own obituary

          Does it make sense to fuss around cooking and keep being handy

What activities could possibly sustain you as you counted down to the nil

          Would you donate your organs and finally make out your last will

Would you still strive to keep your lawn well-trimmed and green

          What could you share with your grandson so he would see what you mean

Do you think you could extract some bit of wisdom from where you have been

          If you find ways to maintain will they conflict with what you have seen

What would you do first and what would you try to be doing at the end

          Would you swell hotly with anger and then collapse among friends

Would you choose peaceful narcotic fantasies or the blunt edge of reality

          Could helping others possibly ease the pain of your imminent fatality

Could you consider the fate of everything that you have been taught

          Could you conceive of a universe completely devoid of your own thought

Would you be able to draw any real satisfaction from your old recreations

          Would it help those you hurt if, near the end, you had some revelation

What would you choose to be the last thing that you say

          Who would you have stand by you as you finally slip away

What would you do if you had only a few short years left on this earth

        And how would you react if that time began the instant of your birth

Faux-Golden Years

For now I am ready to retire and become that cute and cuddly grandpa

But my prostate has swelt up like an orange and I need that quintuple bypass

I wish to take my time now and to stop and smell those lovely roses

Yet I am 30 pounds overweight and my blood pressure is way too goddamn high

I look forward to the things I worked so much for all those long, hard years

But I have lost my hair and my back just plain hurts me every day and all the time

I plan to see all those places I have only dreamed of during all my work-filled life

However, I cannot walk, even quite slowly, without wheezing and turning red

I want to take some time to sort things out and make a bit of sense of it all

But my memory fails rapidly and I find simple explanations really are the best

I look forward to great adventures in the freedom of the open road

I poke along in my bloated RV between those safe, costly and sterile campgrounds

I finally get to spend some time with my family and my grandchildren

Turns out I don’t really care for them and they don’t have much time for me

I am excited to make new friends and live a rich and rewarding social life

I wear little diapers because I leak a bit after each of my 15 daily pees

I want to travel lightly, looking for excitement, like I did so long ago

I go nowhere without several pairs of glasses and all of my prescription meds

I collect my thoughts and refine my experiences into a unique vision of my own

I am viewed as a simple dodderer, quite inconsequential and totally irrelevant

I will finally spend some time communing with nature and learning of myself

Hopefully, my hearing aid does not feedback too loudly or have its battery go dead

I plan to hike to the many places I have noticed driving by, where people never go

My cardio and knees are simply gone and I tire quickly in the grocery store

I will hit the hot spots and go to all the famous beaches

Laws may have to be passed to keep my ugly body safely hidden from public view

I hope to gain a new perspective regarding our lives and our times

The world moves so fast around me I just want to keep out of its way

I will stand up for my rights with the others of my storied generation

I mean to attend those creepy Day of the Living Dead demonstrations

I can spend my time helping teach the children to know right from wrong

I am just another body to be looked after, according to their teachers

I try blending in, but my wrinkles and my thin white hair set me far apart

People blow right by me though I walk just as fast as I deem it sensible

I can easily fall asleep by friends and family with my mouth lolling open

If I have a good bowel movement I judge the day to have been a pretty good success

My thin and shiny skin has large dark blotches in among the spreading wrinkles

My yellow toenails get cut twice a year whether I can see them or not

I love getting out of doors and riding in a golf cart while smoking a cigar

I prefer eating dinner at 4 pm to avoid any indigestion when I try to sleep at 9

I talk to people I haven’t seen for years but they look at me quite strangely

Each new diagnosis yields a flood of flattering attention that brings meaning to my life