There were days when I was dead

There were days when I was dead

There were days when I was dead
with no idea I was about to resurrect
Or crack up as it is called

No idea I was about to burst the walls
Of my mausoleum
everyone admired
I kept it so well

They came upon me
These attacks
Scattering the collective silence
Shattering the unnumbered bones
Rising, an ungainly rickety skeleton
from a sensible presentable
Grave

A quite uncalled for outburst
Upsetting everyone for no reason
Whatever the matter was
It was never the time
And certainly not the place

Fortunately most days I coped so well
even I was fooled
I was not just the life
I was the soul of every party
A social asset
Extremely capable
A good mixer
Able to hold my end up
Pull out the necessary stops,
Keep the ball rolling
All from behind my
Manicured, elegant grave.

I knew where I stood on issues
I’d worked out my position on things
I could even make jokes crack
Like machine gun fire
Lighting up everything
Making folk fall about
Sides splitting until
There was so much noise
I had no idea

I was dead.

No idea I was a taking part in an unwitting war
Carried on unwittingly in a time called peace.

Under the blood red colours of family life
I had unlearnt to feel
before the massed ranks of undeniable truths
I had unlearnt to know
Before armies of alien facts

I lay down

And died

Yet ... yet
The cracks came
Light filtered through
And like plants
We lean towards the light
And not quite dead we see that
crocuses push away stones
even in city streets

I cannot see these miracle flowers
without knowing that life does not die
strength does not dissolve and,
with the merest breath of fragile feeling,
we can blow away mausoleums
and rise

alive.