0314 Executive Decision

‘Look! now briefly, mortal living head - As severed from thy now so lifeless limbs In brief and, who knows, truthful, godly view, So solemn, oncely, rare - that fleshly instrument That thou hath used, misused… And learn this last of life’s live lessons, quick and dread In these few seconds of a living death…’ So Dean John Donne might have wrung out that detail, had he known it – tolled his solemn, tortured, feargod, ringing knell - had he but known this ‘metaphysical’ quaint fact: that, when the executioner’s sharp axeblade slices through your neck with such finality, the head maintains its human faculties for eight brief seconds after body falls; the executioner, it’s said, with great formality, then takes hold that still-life head by its warm hair, and turns it round with all solemnity, to gaze its last repentence or regret upon its frail accomplice on life’s way; the gathered audience awed to silent, ice-cold heart.. last freeze-frame photo of an undeveloped film. This solemn final courtesy of soul to soul I’ll leave to metaphysicals, to speak life whole.