LAZURUS II
BY
PETER NOLAN SMITH
FOTOS
BY SHANNON GREER, RAOUL OLLMAN, AND FX TIMONEY
PUBLISHED BY MANGOZEEN BOOKS 2024
Nearing Christmas 2022 I was experiencing liver failure. At 69 my chances for a transplant were slim, however early on Yulemas Weill-Cornell called to say come in, “We have a liver for you.”
I packed a bag ready for all outcomes. 5-10% of transplant end badly. I had had a good life and showed up for any eventuality. After a ten-hour operation I returned to life from the dead.
Lazarus II.
This glossy booklet contains a long poem LAZARUS II about my miraculous coming and going with a happy ending complete with eleven high resolution photos shot by Raoul Ollman, the cover, Shannon Greer the interior, and the back by Francis X Timony. Shannon’s photos are graphic nudes revealing the horror of one of the most intense operations on this planet. Many have likened them to the horrific photo of Andy Warhol wound after the Valerie Solanis shooting.
Price $12 plus $3 shipping in the USA
Venmo Peter-Smith-18
Essence
Last year I died three times.
Once on an airplane
Coming from Bangkok
Twice on an Operating table.
Passing from this life
To white oblivion
Not heaven
Not hell
Merely a white oblivion
Coming back
Not as a reincarnation
But
To this life
To this body
To the meaninglessness
Of the Now.
My body healed
Skin and bones
Looking like Willem Dafoe
My soul
Joyless
Still in limbo
Of a world Not of my making
Months pass
Healing
Winter to Spring
Healing
Alone
Spring to summer
Alive
No longer barely
Alive
Not looking like the before me
Not looking like Willem Dafoe either.
Halfway between the old me
And the new me
In June
Stronger and I went to the Rockaways
My friend FX
My lifeguard
A better than good swimmer.
The Atlantic shore break was dangerous
I stripped off my clothes
Naked to the elements
A long scar across my abdomen
FX looks at me
I at him.
I am not alone
I am with him
The wind
jThe earth
Water
Sky
The ocean calls
I race through the waves
Dive into the sea
Surface
The sun to the west
The glow of life
Surges
Through my veins
Duck under a wave
Surface
Alive
Filled with the memory
Of hundreds of beaches
Around the world
Higgins Beach Maine
My mother reaching down to pull me up
Nantasket Beach
A drowned man
Wollaston
Swimming around the sewer
The water warm
Moonlight Beach
California
LSD with seals
Mazatlan
Waikiki
Bingin Beach Bali
Nice, Cannes, Biarritz
Koh Phi Phi
I lose count
FX shouts
I shout back
The waves washing away the tears of joy
I am alive
And I no longer look like Willem Dafoe
Just another version of me.
Lazurus II