Poet Lady Katz: new forum reply to deathbed

New reply from Susan Katz

Thank you for sharing your work with me. You have written prose but, I suspect, you have the heart and soul of a poet. There are some wonderfully, well-written, poetic moments in your story -
"So many moons and earthquakes have gone but still I stroll, now leaving bits of my questions here and there , some above the charcoal rock on which I rested a month ago, some suppressed beneath the algae green mud, maybe one day seeds of daffodils would acknowledge my question and then send one of its stranded child through the cerulean wind with my answers held in its fist." (With "tight-fisted" editing, this is pure poetry.) (It would need tightening, but it is poetry!)
In general, I do not respond with editing suggestions to prose as this website is dedicated to poetry. But, when I suspect a poet is lurking behind the cloak of a story-writer, I feel compelled to encourage them (you) to try and extract that which is most essential, emotional, visual and try your hand at poetry. I think you might find there is a poem waiting to be discovered in this prose piece.
Thank you again, for sharing with me and do keep on writing, being an artist – you have, I suspect a great deal of talent.
Write on… Susan

https://poetladykatz.com/poetry-talk/deathbed

Original Post by Riya Jaiswal

deathbed

I held the bits and pieces of whatever I had and tried to put them together hoping they would all complement and complete the puzzle of my indecisiveness but they never made sense. Like a senseless little earthling I roamed here and there, from the colours of blue and white snowy winter , to magenta and rich orange of dusk, I paced out from smoky black into the lemonade yellow on summer noons, all I knew I had to keep on moving, so I moved. I moved from the starry nights, inventing my own constellations of fantasy making sure I hid my questions within myself – under my rough blankets of fear and loss so that nobody could rob them from my white marble coloured stiff fingers. 
 
So many moons and earthquakes have gone but still I stroll, now leaving bits of my questions here and there , some above the charcoal rock on which I rested a month ago, some suppressed beneath the algae green mud, maybe one day seeds of daffodils would acknowledge my question and then send one of its stranded child through the cerulean wind with my answers held in its fist. That's not the end yet because I had left some dry with my tears of impatience, crumbled nowhere and few stuffed in the wine bottle left on the ocean shore void of shells, till now the wave would have swallowed it. I hope a sailor finds it only to admire the folds my neurons would have made while asking that. I hope he might write a book and one day I'll search in his mint smelling canary yellow parchment full of philosophy and then I'll bless him that his ship may never sink. 
 
I've walked so far in search of answers of what I don't even remember but before I hit my deathbed I'll remember I always had clenched some in my fist or some hidden under my armpit. Maybe when death will approach me, he would pity before sucking out the soul and emptying my vessel, he might spare me a few moments to recall – to recall I had the answers, always inside my own hollows of depth of darkness, in that basement of my subconscious that I feared the most to enter. It was like vaccum dark, smelt of faint ash. I had once been there, only for a few seconds when I stepped out from the hypnosis, sweating after seeing the flashes of what you'd call fears or I'll rather say traumas. It smelt unpleasant like someone was choking out of oxygen to death- I ran away from that vaccum for my lungs were all stuffed with thorns, my insides were bleeding. It wasn't horrible. It was void. Void of love and acceptance. Void of humbleness and gentleness. It was nothing like hell- like an inbetween where there was no satan or angel. I realised I was supposed to be there. I was required to illuminate it with the warm hues of cobalt, ember, peachy pink and lilac. It wasn't easy so I ran away and now death was hovering above me – smiling at my fate. 
 
I hope I had fragmented that dwelling with the sweet smells of lavender and daisy. I should have decorated the rotten staircase with lillies like a freshly cut sour lemon and as cosy like the smell of chocolate chips being garnished over garlic bread beside a hot coffee brewing on a misty morning but it never happened because I only moved. I kept on moving here and there for I thought it was outside of me. I thought the guy next door had answers and it was very shrewd of him keeping it with himself locked in his empty tin vanilla muffin box. So ironic – no? They, I don't know who they were. But they told me to keep on moving, don't stop when you are out of breath, just keep on sprinting, falling, begging and howling but just don't stop. That's what I did, never pausing to see within my subconscious which had a library full of mysterious answers even to my clever questions. I was unaware of the power it resided and all the way through my adventures I forgot it was all within me. But now it's gone. Time is a real sl*t- she screwed me again.
 
So as I am standing over my own deathbed which will soon turn into a grave. I wonder about that wine bottle- did it ever reached somebody? Or that golden dandelion which also smelt like citrus and fresh lilac- did it ever really pollinated or its seeds remained their aestivating. Again in a split second it was all over. I lied there- unmoved. I saw my body – blue and ivory white. Now there were no tensions or crease of lines on my forehead and for they very first time I paused – paused forever or maybe I'll be shown mercy and I'll continue again in another lifetime but this time I'll make sure I start answering my own questions. I maybe dawned upon by the veil of amnesia but I'll ask my creator to remind me – "it was, is and will enternally be within me, for eternity". For now I shall leave, I cannot stand the foul smell of decaying flesh being eaten by vultures and worms. I bid a final farewell to the earthling part of me as Death carried me in its arms. 
 
I woke up like a fresh dew drop drops from the green leave blades, from my lucid dream. You know how it smelt? It was like a freshly mowed grassless lawn. I realised- I was born again this time cleansed in the form of artist so I shall create art to survive. I'll make it count this time- every moment, every second, every memory. I'll not let it fade. I won't let time be a slut this time. This time I'll stand on my grave happily and at that I'll cherish for it was not eternal. I'll cherish that this time I did what I wanted to not what I was supposed to.