“You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that, oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was…” from The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
The Big Sleep was a book and a film (starring Humphrey Bogart and directed by Howard Hawks) that I had to compare and contrast on my university course and it has always been close to my heart. I was even inspired to write a comic fantasy novel called Bigg’s Leap , which was a follow up to previously released The Malthouse Falcon (still both available on Amazon).
I guess Chandler is trying to say in the above quote that ‘when you are dead, you are dead’ and this is very much my thinking in this poem. Others will disagree with me and that is their right.
An early morning conversation at our house…
“You’d sleep for ever, you would.”
“I will…one day.”
THE BIG SLEEP
Sleep, the thief of life,
According to the gravestones,
Where the dead are “Just sleeping”
Or “Merely asleep” as they wait…
For what? An alarm, maybe?
Remember that early morning call;
Those times when death seemed
A much finer option than work?
Just to go back to sleep…
When you really want it so much
Is the nicest feeling in the world.
You push your head deep into your pillow,
Unready for the act of existence.
You just want to be allowed
To rest in peace.
Whenever we’re asked…
When the time is right,
The way we all want to go
Is to die in our sleep…right?
Sleep into our death.
I have always been happy to sleep;
And getting my head around death
Is easier if you think of it as sleep
Because nobody dreads not waking –
When once you are ‘dead to the world’.
If death is just succumbing to slumber
Forever – then why should we fear it?
I was asleep a long time before I got here.
I can cope with the thought of my non-existence
It’s the process of dying that’s the hard part;
With the accompaniment of pain…
Where sleep might be seen as a blessing.
Not for you the sorrow of the world
You are sleeping the Big Sleep.
The heartache is for those left behind,
Who might sit in a church weeping
Because they loved and will miss you.
(For only the living miss other people)
And they can’t imagine life without you
And now, of course, neither can you.
You lie untroubled by such things…
No more worry, no more pain.
They should take comfort from that.
You remain in the photo-frames of their mind
Where you pose and smile in sunlit gardens
Snapshots that fade with each passing generation
But that too will no longer trouble you.
When I am laid out after death –
The position is assumed
That I will be put on my back
With my arms placed across my chest
Like some long-dead king
In the corner of a dormant abbey
Put me face down, mouth agape
With one arm under the pillow
Limbs a badly-drawn swastika
And let me sleep.
©graylightfoot
gray lightfoot 