Death Cafe

What was Death like in school?
Was he a Goth, or a rebel or a sloth
Was he a lone ranger
Was death a she, a difficult person
tipping the cloth
Did anyone tell Death not to talk to strangers?
Did anyone try to make friends with death, try
To sit down in a cafe and just shoot the wind
Did anyone ever really get under death's skin?
What were death's parents like?
Night and Chaos
Now that must have been an awkward family set up
Perhaps at home they got on like a house on fire
But honestly I doubt it

Perhaps Death was prone to running away
He did not like his father's terrible rages
And sometimes when his mother entered his room
Like a wraith, he thought hang on
Someone's turned the pages
Put me back in the plot for a spot
I'm lost like a ghost in science fiction movie
I'm out of this world
Yet tied down by its chains
Things can be strange surely they can be rearranged
I guess, I'm only guessing though

Perhaps he was very well behaved in school
Not the one slouching over his desk
Perhaps he was first class
A high flyer
The person everyone just loved to hate
Or thought would do terribly well at his job
And imagine this you death snobs
Death must know virtually everything
There's not a corner of this world he hasn't
Globe trotted to
Neither is there an inch of our Psyche
He hasn't gained access to
He has a VIP card for most Venues
After all he's very well connected
He has a large extended family

Psyche in fact is a cousin of his
Quite often they have been enemies
Another mother, and an aunt per chance
He spends his summer holidays with
While Night is too busy in Arctic Norway
To look after him
Is Dementia
She can be a bit of a pain
Always forgetting his birthdays
Death days - she jokingly calls them
Sometime she even slips into a rage
You can't control her like a banshee world wind
Sometimes she's like a child playing with
Pomegranite seeds
Slipping them in and out her mouth
Not sure whether to eat them
But all this was decided long before her
By her mother -Mother Nature -The Four Seasons

And so Death goes out and trudges through the snow
Leaving no footprints anyone would know
- he's carbon neutral
And Politically inert
Though as a teenager he'd wave a banner of protest
Get under the shirt of Chaos his father
Who is busy causing merry hell in Parliament
Losing elections, rigging votes
Generally carpet bagging, gerrymandering
Pandering to the electorate
And making unwanted approaches to Elektra
his intern for the season

Death would come back from these marches
Down in the mouth, in need of a coffee
Or something stronger
And so he would lurch into a cafe
To fall in conversation with strangers
Just to talk about the word on everyone's lips, but his
(because he had none)
Him
That is one of his faults
He loves talking about himself too much
And so does everybody else
But they won't admit it to eachother
No neither themselves
Most of the time
Apart from on their own (or perhaps with their mother)
Because in crowds they talk about Life
'Being Alive' his son
'Lively' and Live-Wire the successful daughters
Vibrant, Life's wife
then Thriving and Full of Life
Really they are quite a smug family thought death to himself
But then he had Sex
And Sex and Death got married
Night and Chaos were so happy
And their first child Violence
well, he was a bit of a disaster,
No sorry Disaster was the second child
Then there came Calamity Jane
Doubt and Betrayal
And they had a whale of a time
It is a shame thought Death that this all had to End
But in Ending there is a Beginning
That is the cycle of Birth and Death
Birth, I suppose, being their unwanted twin
Who was adopted by the Life family
And went on to have many children of her own (thankfully)
Still Death likes to talk now and then in cafes
Sometimes in more private places
And you have to give him space
To have his say
You have to invite this guest to your table
Because he's there anyway in the background
And you'll have to make friends with him
one day
Perhaps not today though
Hey?