fear of death (and after)

for the over 70s

a poem by hugo brucciani

featuring Roy Batty as Gilgamesh

abcb rhyming starter

<<
too young

at thirty-five, the bard observed
dread of something after death
at thirty-three, Thomas told his
dying dad to rage
at fifty-five, Larkin leaked his
early-morning funk
all too young for the animal fear –
and the need to act your age

<<
dementia

dementia shuffles in the wings
fear of death before the end
but that’s another story
that’s a diffrent ear to bend

<<
fear of death

life’s a bowl of cherries
it’s also a bowl of crap
it’s a cabaret, a revolving door
a way marked on a map
but after threescore years and ten
the end is feeling real
whatever life is, you just want more
to stem the fear you feel

<<
acceptance

want more life? well tough, too bad
your lust for life’s a bit obscene
death is coming – let it come
blame it on the selfish gene
act your age, turn the page
do some meditation
follow your breath, remember Death
will need no invitation
Mother Nature doesn’t care
now you’re past the age of mating
so what comes next? you might well ask
to pass the time of waiting

free-verse main

<<
what comes next?

what comes next?
you might well ask
nothing

says the devout atheist

something

i don’t know

says the smug agnostic

no one really knows
which should put nothing in the lead
but many near-death daytrippers say
there’s something coming next
consciousness being the producer
not the product
my money’s on something to win

<<
something

if there’s something after death
will it be something good
or will it be something bad?
a Heaven of wonderful meaning
or a Hell of meaningless dreams?
i pray to Om for meaning
for meaning after death
but Great God Om is silent
in his misty mountain mansion
in the land of manifest myths
he’s on a toilet break, the total fake
my unanswered prayer
goes drifting into space –
i can only speculate

<<
dreaming

it might be dreaming
dreaming after death
there’s the rub – what dreams may come
my living dreams are confused
unhappy and meaningless
i fear an eternity of that
i add to my my to-do list
practice lucid dreaming
as i lay me down to sleep
i pray my dreams be clear and sweet

<<
judgement

on my day of judgement
at the crossroads
with St Peter, the Devil and Robert Johnson
a ghostly AI does the dirty work
sifting swiftly through my life
the result isn’t great
what d’you say? says Johnson
in a kindly kind of way
i say i’m sorry for
not making the most of it
and being a shit sometimes
it wasn’t my fault, give me a break, i whine
then pulling what’s left of myself together
i say whatever, do it
and my judged afterlife begins

hey ho

<<
quantumness

so obviously the multiverse
being made of consciousness
and everything being an illusion, kind of
and my consciousness being
a durable construct of quantum reality
i survive death
with a body made of quantum magic
mine but young and healthy
i see the light, dead friends and relatives
maybe Baby Jesus and Santa Claus
another illusion? perhaps
but it’s better than instant nothing

isn’t it?

<< <
quant 1
reincarnation

after a while,
in the reincarnation unit
surrounded by the spirits of my
surviving loved ones (if any)
and maybe an angel or two,
my soul is stripped down
to its unique quantum core
and reborn according to
the karmic algorithm
it’s for my own good
apparently

goodbye! hello!
again

<< <
quant 2
reabsorption

after a (different) while,
in the reabsorption unit
watched by angels
i dissolve into the ocean of quant
fair enough, i suppose

bye bye!
byee…….

<< <
quant 3
freedom!

alternatively
after a (short) while
i join a rebel group
and we escape from Heaven
in a scifi-action-movie kind of way
pursued by an avenging angel
(whom we ambush and convert to our cause)
we roam the quantum multiverse
on our quest for cosmic justice
like Roy Batty and Gilgamesh
we’re going to meet our maker
and demand an explanation

whoopee!

(replicant Batty killed his maker
because of his limited lifespan
humans have the same grievance
but that might be going too far)

<<
or there’s nothing

brain shuts down, mind fades fast
never mind, i think
it was never going to …

desert

sweet dreams
(if available)

the end

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Editors’s note: This poem was smuggled out of a high-security institute for the insane somewhere in the Austrian Alps. Brucciani is thought to have overdosed on scopolamine whilst poet in residence at the Sigmund Freud Museum. The Society of Poets is said to be organising a rescue mission.

The dark side of the Enlightenment

Decolonise this

I’ve always greatly respected the Enlightenment, the European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries led by philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, Newton, Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith.

(I’ve read about them…)

The Enlightenment emphasised reason. I’d looked up to it as a way out of superstition, ignorance and oppression, and as the foundation of modern liberal democracy.

However, the Black Lives Matter movement has exposed the part played by Enlightenment philosophers in justifying the slave trade and slavery by coming up with the idea of white supremacy.

I didn’t know, for instance, that Immanuel Kant said, ‘humanity is at its greatest perfection in the race of the whites’. To be fair, he apparently later recanted (re-Kanted?), kind of, but the damage was done.

Kant, the hypocritical preacher of moral egalitarianism, expounded at length about the failings of the various ‘races’ as compared with the perfect whites. He said black people were stupid. He babbled authoritatively about the qualities of different African ‘races’ in terms of their suitability as slaves.

Such ‘philosophy’ was extremely useful to slave traders and ‘owners’ – not in practical terms, but in terms of moral support for their inhuman enterprise.

Now we know about the Enlightenment’s dark side, and in the woke wake of that awareness students have – understandably – called for decolonisation of the university syllabus. (The Daily Mail‘s response: ‘They Kant be serious!’)

In defence of the Enlightenment, it’s said that Kant & co. were conservative, and we should look to lesser-known radical philosophers of the Enlightenment – Baruch Spinoza, for instance – for its heart and soul.

Maybe so, but those mainstream conservative Enlightenment philosophers built our foundations – which now feel shaky.

Luckily – switch of metaphor! – the fruit of the Enlightenment, liberal democracy (currently the worst form of government apart from all the others) seems not fundamentally poisoned by this racist root. So I’ll still praise the Enlightenment – but less wholeheartedly.

The poison wasn’t Enlightenment philosophy – it was colonialism. It’d be nice to think those two heavyweight phenomena – Enlightenment and colonialism – were fundamentally separate and coincidental, rather than horribly symbiotic.

We need to decolonise our democracy but it’s easier said than done. Having ripped off and destroyed colonial countries, the UK blithely invited large numbers of residents of those countries to move and live here to help rebuild postwar Britain – then blighted their lives with postcolonial racism.

As I argue elsewhere, colonial racism is apparently a twisted version of a redundant anti-stranger instinct (evolved to protect against communicable disease).

If we acknowledge that, we can choose to live above it (as with other ‘monsters from the id‘), so enabling us to oppose and end racism and to decolonise our minds – and our institutions.

This post is an edited excerpt from my longform post Racism explained as a redundant instinct

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God is a mixed metaphor

**Creationism** *Painting: Michelangelo*

God is a mixed metaphor
Do you know what He is for?
Religion is a form of art
Totality made up from parts of
Goodness, wisdom, power, love
Authority from up above
He’s been dead two hundred years
Poisoned by our hopes and fears

Life is a revolving door
Do you know what it is for?
Philosophy? Ah nah nah nah
Just put you hand upon your car
And swear you will be true to those
Who lie in wait, half comatose
We’ve been stoned two hundred years
We know all your hopes and fears

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