I have been drinking. Don't worry, I haven't been drinking alone. It was social drinking. But I'm alone now.
And I have just watched the very last episode of the last series of Six Feet Under, which is undoubtedly one of the best television series ever made (what's the plural of 'series', I wonder?).
Oh, I don't know if I should be saying these things, but then, I suppose, that's what writers do. Writers are like incorrigible drunks who blub their heartfelt confessions to anyone who will listen.
Well, there's a song called Late Night, Maudlin Street. Will I regret telling you this in the morning? No, no, nothing can change how I feel about this. Nothing can sully it. There's a song called Late Night, Maudlin Street, and there is a kind of spoken part low in the mix before the singing begins in earnest. And every time I hear the song, the very first spoken word makes me shiver, because it sounds like someone is speaking my name. Not only that, it sounds as if someone is actually talking to me for the first time in my life ever, as if someone has actually recognised me for who I truly am… for the first time ever. "Quentin…" It's such a welcome voice, like the voice of death. You know, I think what it actually says is "waiting", because after that the words become clearer: "Quentin… waiting for so long." Yes, it's true, I have been waiting for so long. Have you come for me now? Please take me.
And over the spoken part, still quite low in the mix, there is singing: "Oh, when to push off? Oh, when to move on?"
But that first word – "Quentin/waiting" – feels like the hand of a ghost gently touching my chest.
I can hear a voice singing. Is it me?
I once had a child and he saved my life
And I never even asked his name
I just looked into those wondrous eyes
And said never, never, never again.
And all too soon I did return,
Just like a moth to a flame.
So rattle my bones all over the stones,
I'm only a beggar man who nobody owns.
Oh, see how words as old as sin
Fit me like a glove.
I'm here and here I'll stay.
Together we lie, together we pray.
There never need be longing in your eyes.
As long as the hand that rocks the cradle is mine.
The final episode of Six Feet Under is called Everyone's Waiting. I don't want to give the end away, but the end really is THE END. You, me, and everyone we know all die.
Waiting, waiting for so long.
I once knew a child and he saved my life
And I never even asked his name…
Quentin… waiting for so long…
We don’t do death very well, do we? As a society, I mean. I think once upon a time we did, but now it’s shuffled off into a far corner and ignored like the cousin with a history of pyromania at a family reunion. I never got very involved with Six Feet Under, mainly because I was wrapped up in The Sopranos and Deadwood and didn’t think I could handle one more obsession at the time, but the few episodes I saw, I liked, especially the way they opened them with a random death and the treatment of death as part of life–among other things. They gave a very realistic portrayal of human relationships and the tragedy inherent in living; all things move toward their end, as Nick Cave says often enough. The natural order of things (if there is an order) is decay. Isn’t it?Anyway, that’s not what I meant to talk about at all. Certainly didn’t mean to get morbid on you. I prefer to drink Scotch whiskey, Laphroiag if I can get it, or at the very least a good ale or red wine. The health fascists in this country have done cigarettes to death; next they’ll start on alcohol, and may Dionysius help us then.M
For some reason I am suddenly thinking of a quote from Bowie’s All the Madmen:”Where can the horizon lie when a nation hides its organic mind in a cellar, dark and grim? They must be… very dim.”I do actually find myself looking forward to death most of the time, these days, rather than being afraid, as I used to. When death does scare me, it’s more in the sense that death exists in our lives in some indefinable way, in the brevity and pain and insanity of our lives. It is really the dark depths of death that we are foudnering in when we feel ourselves to be failures, or when we feel alone, or when we can’t shake off the feeling that we are an utterly unforgivable person who has committed some terrible crime whose stain will never leave the soul.Actual physical death… I feel immense curiosity about.
I wouldn’t want it to hurry itself any, or to hurt very much(being the awful coward that I am). I do think the older I get, the less terrifying death–or the idea of it anyway–becomes.I’m very much enjoying living right now, don’t get me wrong. But there’s a time and a season for everything, to warm up the cliche motor once more. I imagine when I get there, I’ll be ready for it one way or another. Or not…M
“I’m very much enjoying living right now…”I’m not, I’m afraid. I don’t like being conscious. But I’m not in a hurry to die, either. I’m just sooooooooooo tired of everything.I suppose, mainly, I’m tired of being me. Time for me to quote The Smiths yet again:Accept YourselfEvery day you must say So, how do I feel about my life ? Anything is hard to find When you will not open your eyes When will you accept yourself ? I am sick and I am dull And I am plain How dearly I’d love to get carried away Oh, but dreams have a knack of just not coming true And time is against me now…oh Oh, who and what to blame ? Oh, anything is hard to find When you will not open your eyes When will you accept yourself, for heaven’s sake ? Anything is hard to find When you will not open your eyes Every day you must say Oh, how do I feel about the past ? Others conquered love – but I ran I sat in my room and I drew up a plan Oh, but plans can fall through (as so often they do) And time is against me now…And there’s no-one left to blame Oh, tell me when will you …When will you accept your life ? (The one that you hate) For anything is hard to find When you will not open your eyes Every day you must say Oh, how do I feel about my shoes ? They make me awkward and plain How dearly I would love to kick with the fray … But I once had a dream (and it never came true) And time is against me now…Time is against me now…And there’s no one but yourself to blame Oh, anything is hard to find When you will not open your eyes Anything is hard to find; for heaven’s sake !Anything is hard to find When you will not open your eyes When will you accept yourself ? When ? When ? When ? When ?
dear Quentin,”I have not come for you…” (UNLISTED)I have not come for you,Your turn is way downIn the ‘queue’And there are many othersAhead of you.If you heard words like “Here. Waiting.”Then I fear someone is ‘baiting’For I have not come for you,Your turn is way downIn the ‘queue’And there are many othersAhead of you.I have not come for you becauseI am too busy with the drossOf War. It keeps me busierThan I have ever been before.I have not come for you,Your turn is way downIn the ‘queue’And there are many othersAhead of you.You are not on my current listAnd if you thought you ‘heard’ meIt is likely you are pissed.I took the Pharoahs.I took ‘Emperors’. I took ‘Kings’And now I take the victimsOf ‘collateral damage’And other, well planned, things.I have not come for you,Your turn is way downIn the ‘queue’And there are many othersAhead of you.I will eventually come for you,On a day when your last breathSummons me – bids me,Saying, at last, “Welcome – Death”But now, this moment,I have not come for you,Your turn is way downIn the ‘queue’And there are many many othersAhead of you…..
Ah a kindred soul..I wait too for the final visit,though it eludes me.I can not hasten it,but often wonder why I am left and my children gone~though I am not alone in that. Your words and images are very lovely, and in the end that may be all we have..so Thank You
Hello Lokutus.It’s very nice to see you here again. And thank you for the poem. I wonder if I should point out an intended ambiguity in my original entry, that is, that the voice that calls my name is welcome like the voice of death. I don’t mean to suggest that it actually is the voice of death, although, I suppose it might be, and, as the simile suggests, I do tend to conceive of death in terms of something welcome. Here, though, I mainly wanted to express the sense of some sort of ultimate recognition and, well, relief, or possibly release. But yes, as I said afterwards, I do look forward to death, but also, I have no wish to hurry it. As you say, death is very busy in the world at this moment, and I can certainly wait.Hello Woman4Peace. Thank you for your message. I’m very glad that I have managed to write something that has meaning for you. It’s actually quite humbling to discover that I have done so, as I tend to think that my writing is the product of weakness and selfishness. So, thank you.
“We don’t do death very well, do we? As a society, I mean. I think once upon a time we did, but now it’s shuffled off into a far corner and ignored like the cousin with a history of pyromania at a family reunion.”I keep hearing this, but I don’t agree. You can hardly open a newspaper, turn on a television, or fire up a computer without being bombarded with images of death and destruction. It isn’t being swept under the rug, it’s being flung in our faces — our daily lives are saturated with it. And if people were more comfortable with the idea of death in the past — and I don’t really believe they were — it was because they could find some solace in religion; but a century of scientific research and Existentialist philosophy has all but eroded that. Who wants to wallow in despair?
Well, at the risk of sounding glib, I think that the amount of death in news and entertainment (in other words, in entertainment), is probably a symptom of the fact that we don’t ‘do death’ very well. It’s something like the Freudian return of the repressed. Death comes back as something shocking, because it’s not something that is accepted or explored. I suppose that I, for one, no longer wish to wallow in someone else’s despair (my own is bad enough), and so I’m less inclined to care about science and Existentialism. When it comes right down to it, Darwin is not me, Camus is not me. I’ve got my own life to live, and any hang-ups I deal with, I want to be my own. I think there is another way of perceiving death apart from the one we are generally fed by the media. It’s not one that I find easy to articulate, or even feel inclined to try and articulate, although I suppose it comes out in some of the things I might say or write here and there. If I go inside myself, so to speak, well, yes, I’m perfectly capable of terror at the thought of death, but there is something else beyond that, and I would suggest it is actually of great importance that we get past a fairly immature stage of not wanting to look at death. I don’t actually like using the word ‘immature’, as I think that I am immature, anyway, but I use it because I think that our attitudes to death are not generally recognised as such. People think we have ‘grown up’ as a species, and I really, really disagree. I think we’re in some kind of adolescence.