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These death poems form part of the literary miscellany THIS IS A PICTURE OF YOUR GOD: A HUGH COOK READER. There are also two other death-related poems in the book, one a praise poem for Saddam Hussein and the other an informed consent procedure for death. Informed Consent Procedure for Death The other death poems are consolidated in a section entitled DEATH POEMS, which contains the items listed below. Page 353 — Part Six — DEATH POEMS. A selection of poems about death and dying, originally intended to be the core of a book of death poems, to be called THE DEATH OF BIRDS. Two additional poems were written for this series, item the poem, SADDAM IS GUILTY which is part of item thirteen, FLYING HIGH ON DRUGS, and item twenty-one, INFORMED CONSENT PROCEDURE FOR DEATH. Item Fifty — BEING DEAD Item Fifty-One — THE DEATH OF BIRDS Item Fifty-Two — THE CHEATED DAUGHTER A father betrays his daughter. He has his reasons, of course. Men always do. Naturally, there is another woman involved. A number of other women, in fact. Item Fifty-Three — RECIDIVISM As a deterrent, the death penalty fails. Page 360 — Item Fifty-Four — NINE MONTH PARACHUTE DROP And what if the sentence is to be death, death guaranteed, no treatment on offer? I need a script for this, and, really, I need it now. So I can prepare for my death sentence. If that is what, in fact, is coming down the pipeline. Item Fifty-Five — THE HAPPY PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICHES Meantime, the world rolls on as usual, with the standard tragedies within it. Item Fifty-Six — DYING WE CAN DO TOMORROW Not if you are in the middle of a heart attack, obviously. Then your death becomes immediate. But one of the privileges of cancer is leisure. Time to sit around and drink red wine and eat chocolate. This, then, is a live life now poem, a seize the day poem. Item Fifty-Seven — RED HOT TEARS And there are moments ... Item Fifty-Eight — WALKING AROUND MY CITY The familiar experienced as defamiliarization. Item Fifty-Nine — ICE CREAM BRAIN A brain damage poem. If not death, then a siege, and ice cream city, quite possibly, no match at all for the besieging sun. The radiation has already made its impact. The enemy is already within the gate. Item Sixty — THE BIG DOOR Annihilation conceptualized: death as a big door. Item Sixty-One — ON HIS BLINDNESS Visually impaired and, quite possibly, destined to go blind within the year. Blindness, if blindness, as a prelude to death. Item Sixty-Two — MYTHOLOGIES A product not, as far as I've noticed, to be found on the supermarket shelves. Item Sixty-Three — THE EGOTIST DYING The self-obsession of a dying man: death conceived of as an act of selfishness. Item Sixty-Four — BLIND MEN CAN STILL EAT MARZIPAN Item Sixty-Five — KITES Nostalgia, sorrow, loss. Item Sixty-Six — IN THE LAND OF BIG BROCCOLI In the land of big broccoli, in New Zealand, far from the winter in Japan, there is, amongst other things, broccoli. Item Sixty-Seven — THE ACTIVE CHILD Someone's daughter, not yet quite two years of age. Miss Energy Bundle, Miss Total Personality, death refuted by the instant. Item Sixty-Eight — PROGERIA Item Sixty-Nine — CORNFLAKES The routine demands, and must be catered for. Item Seventy — THIS WAR IN IRAQ And all this other stuff, history, public events, the ongoing life of the world, given and to come, the future and the past — what exactly is that to me, right now? Item Seventy-One — MY CONCEPTUAL SIEVE Before death, dissolution. Working with a partial brain. |
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