glow.

Another of my favorite poems. My last blog kind of reminded me of it for some reason.

To the Mercy Killers
Dudley Randall

If ever mercy move you murder me,
I pray you, kindly killers, let me live.
Never conspire with death to set me free,
but let me know such life as pain can give.
Even though I be a clot, an aching clench,
a stub, a stump, a bump, a scab, a knob,
a screaming pain, a putrefying stench,
still let me live, so long as life shall throb.
Even though I turn such traitor to myself
as beg to die, do not accomplice me.
Even though I seem not human, a mute shelf
of glucose, bottled blood, machinery
to swell the lungs and pump the heart--even so,
do not put out my life. Let me stilll glow.

It was all I could do to keep from crying in class when I heard this.