Rat in the Coffin [a Four Part Poem]





Part One: The Coffin

I was buried alive…I think with a~rat
And the rat was breathing up all the air—

All of the Air!!...
And he~crawled on my stomach,—
He really was too heavy for me…
I had had, a hard time breathing!

“Are you going to get me out of here?”
I asked,—I asked the rat in English.
I lit a match, I then saw his shadow

Walking about (he understood English)
He was bleeding on me, or I on him
(I saw drops of blood on me anyhow).

The Rat said to me: he was new in town,
And somehow found hisself in my coffin
(I think he was lying, so I sensed).

I lit another match, saw the shadows

Shadows on the walls of the rat
God made the rat, I told myself, but—
But why put him in my coffin? Why!~?
Why not make a different place for him?

I was going to kill the rat but said:
‘Let it live, it’s doing me no harm’;

and so it was.

I remember thinking: now it is (death)
And then it wasn’t,—(the rat), then it
Wasn’t, and it was (I was alive as was the rat).
Then I woke up, and it was raining
And I said to myself: ‘The dead

Know they are dead’: they harness it
Drag it about—neck-yoke it.

Part Two: Rat in the Rain

Without thunder, the rain rushed, poured

All around me,—
The rain: there was no warning, it just
Just happened all of a sudden,—
Wet to the skin—yet I am not sure if


If the rain is an illusion of my mind I found a raincoat, held it over my head
Above my head, like a roof—:

Up and down, like a saw my heart goes;
Unhurried: like a piston moving in oil—

Tireless it pumps, pumps, pumps

I look at the grass—its so green, but

Why do I not get out of the rain?
So I asked myself…
I noticed the earth is breathing, breeding
Its face is like mine: old, cold with

Streams; I feel my heart
It is still sawing wood into dust.

I look at my feet: the rat is back!
I squint at the rat, I watch the rat stooping

I cover it with my roof like raincoat,
The rat says: “…it won’t be long,” –
He’s dry anyway…like me, under my roof.

The rain stops, the rat doesn’t’ look so
Raty anymore: more fumilure, more of,
Of a friend you could say—he gives a

Gesture: deliberate and composed:
He will see me again; I know that.

I have now lowered my roof, my raincoat,
I see the faint silhouette of the rat:

I remember him saying: “Before
You die; you must be vacant of sleep,
Ready to awake…”

Somehow I think the rat knows me

Better than I know myself.
And so death is not, and sleep is, and
The rat was, and no, is not. But I know this:
Once the rain starts, it will all be turned around

Again; and the rat will be there: and
Sleep will be nigh, and death is. And so
I must be ready, or I may end up awake
Back in that coffin again: so the I am,
Will be the I was.

Part Three: Buried

In a natural hole—the coffin sinks,
By its center—as you would expect,
Stress being up and down, just look at
Any old grave, it sinks down…down, down.

Where is the rat?

It had rained and stopped again—
The river was up now, water can be powerful:
Breaks bridges, damns, dikes, houses
The rat shows up—at the wake. He has

Shaved I think, he looks different,
I’d give a dollar to know how that rat got
Into this wake unnoticed. His eyes, eyes
They are looking at me, he doesn’t look too
Raty anymore, not at all, clean shaven…

“We have three souls,” the rat says. Not sure
How he knows this, but this is what I’m hearing
Without listening, “…one for here, one there

(And he points at me and himself)
And one for scrubbing,” and he smiles.

Part Four: Conclusion

Scarecrow

Source-less as light: hearing without listening,
When you are dead, the dead know they are dead
You are like a scarecrow in a winter field.
People look at you with a pale stare, without

Curiosity, perfectly grave, blank:
You are at the moment: dry, loose, weightless
You start to balloon above everyone—

—I can hear only the shuffle and murmur


of feet (in the lobby and above). No more pretenses, no more rats, only one
Soul now!... and there’s mom.