Long Funerals Poems
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"Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours."
Yogi Berra
I read it and I laughed, and each time I laughed, recognizing it for its humor.
Why would we care who or whether anyone comes to our funeral?
Unless we throw it for ourselves ahead of time.
Which I always thought was a better idea anyway
Especially if we have a disease like bone cancer,
and we know we are dying.
All of our friends could collect at the pub or the church
And say good things about us
To me this is the only reason anyone should actually to a funeral.
When the guest of honor is gone no one knows you anyway
Of course if you are from a small town it is a social gathering
Four funerals a week would not be too many for those people
It beats watching people from their porch swings
Why do grey skies make us so blue
Well, we don't literally turn blue
It's describes the sad mood it creates
Leaving us sombre and brood
A big yellow sun makes everyone smile
We delight at the green of the hills
Old Mother Earth is a colourful old gal
She can change our outlook at will
Brown is not one of our favourite colours
Reminds us of you know what
The colour purple acts much like blue
In a sad situation we're caught
Black surely has a negative connotation
Reminds us of funerals and death
The colour white has the opposite effect
But ghosts take away our breath
All things considered we need these colours
Can you imagine if bananas were pink
Lavender corn sure wouldn't be appealing
I'd swear off certain foods methinks!
Pictures are moments,
captured for just one second
of our past.
Memories,
to be brought out at
weddings and funerals.
Remembering the youth
that has long since
passed us by.
Pasted away in the great
"Picture Album"
Only to be reviewed,
on those special occasions.
I look in the mirror and see my life
a young girl running and jumping
picking wildflowers for mother
helping daddy in his workshop
(well, on his bench anyways)
sitting on grandma's lap in the kitchen
listening to her tell stories while I pet my kitty
I watch her lips and expressions in awe
(in the end she did not know my name)
but she liked me a lot- I guess that is life
I see myself at the funerals of my sister, brother
father, mother, husband, baby and grandma
I just close my eyes and I am there again
my grandpa had left me long, long ago
life goes on and I grew to who I am
I became a writer grandma because of you
now, I feel an ache and stiffness in my bones
it is hard to hold a pen for very long
I am not very fast anymore
and often misplace things in odd places
cannot remember names and only the past in fragments
but life still goes on
I look in the mirror and wonder
who is that old lady looking back
because in my mind I am a young girl
_____________________
May 06, 2022
Poetry/Free Verse/the mirror of my life
Copyright Protected, ID 05-1453-964-06
All Rights Reserved, 2022, Constance La France
Written for the Standard contest, In The Mirror of Life
sponsor, Anoucheka Gangabissoon, Judged 05/13/2022
First Place
First Steps Funerals and Nana's Hands
By Evelyn Aimarie
2 days after my Nana's funeral
My oldest son took his first steps.
She was my grandmother on my father's side, but more like a mother to me.
Palms textured like warm overwashed cotton sheets- thin but comfortable, and clothes line, spring sunshine soft.
Pastel blue intricate
barely visible veins whispered life through skin undertoned with shades of the palest tea stains and ochre,
Broken in tone only by the occasional bruise she swore she couldn't remember where she got.
Tendons like flower roots danced like the underworkings of piano keys when she wiggled her fingers.
She always wore a ring with the birthstones of all of her grandchildren on it.
There was a time before my son.
Before my Nanas hands were so tired, so delicately tired and weighted by their form from generations of holding hands
Holding babies
Holding house holds together.
Holding my heart as it strummed for a mother and she tuned into the song, danced the role beautifully and with ease.
Wore it like a cloak and draped it around my shoulders in support when I brought my son home from the hospital
As she proudly exclaimed how beautiful he was with tears in her eyes.
The time before, when I was small,
I would reach for those... less tired.. more supple hands.
With the ring tighter on the finger to the point we once had to use dish soap and string and the sheer force of panic to remove it. When the skin was not as rubbed of its youth. There was a time when I reached for her hands, too, for balance.
2 days after my Nanas funeral, the same day I inherited her ring with the birthstones of all of her grandchildren on it
The first day I had it on my finger
My oldest son took his first steps into MY outstretched hands.
I suppose, I'm keeping her cloak warm.
I suppose, I miss her.
I suppose, my Nana's hands were on my shoulders behind me that day.
2 days after my Nana's funeral,
My oldest son took his first steps
Form:
There are many zones
the popular Twilight Zone
crossing the school zone
with all the basics
like writhing and reeling and
arrhythmias are fatal
for Western students
cluelessness, secrecy, and
incapacity
ignored globe grows dust
and the school's walls have blackboards
dartboards for target practice
the teachers alarmed
walled Glocks that toll assassins
the lambs are noisy
indoors and outdoors
the hung apple's score tallies
The Tree of Knowledge still grows
principal announced
school will close for funerals
the town folks will meet
and begs an answer
school razed for homeschooling
new breeds promise no more graves
twenty-twenty-five
parents, their kid's commencements
gymnasium armed
library screams sh!
nobody crossing zone signs
fronts empty cemetery
Billions of galaxies,
Plenty of planets,
Moons and suns,
Unfathomable stars,
Bountiful black holes,
Drastic darkness,
Yet on this esoteric earth
My minute head is
Filled with frivolous
And quizzical questions,
“What should I have for dinner?”
“Am I going to be a winner?”
Funny how we take everything
For granted guilelessly,
The thing we call life,
Feels like a distraction sometimes,
Birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, funerals,
Imbecilic circle,
Just like a circus,
Fathers on hamster wheels,
Mothers on tea cup rides,
Children on roller coasters,
Is life a distraction from life?
Free will is another topic
Of a mystery map to
Deeply dive in and discover
That all that matters is
The clouds in your coffee,
The sun in your pancakes,
And the moon in your pain au chocolat.
Apocalypse Beans
Sometimes it seems
your chest is about to cave in.
You try to catch a breath but
your heart flutters like a dry leaf;
Just more suburban undulations;
Dressed down for a slow blues song.
Apocalypse Beans sizzle on the fire.
Life has such trying interludes,
when it seems you can’t go further.
You are so tired and scared,
you can hardly urinate at dawn.
Your mind begins to see
air movies of the dead ascending;
Crawling out of cracked tombs
dressed sedately for the soirée.
A million funerals go by with
skeleton girls sucking on pixy stix.
Madness angels in garters pass over
sleeping streets searching for blood trees.
Stallion-dressed men-dogs chase down
old octogenarians for bones and wisdom teeth.
Fear worms from hell come slinking,
Oozing out of a million eye sockets,
Sucking blood and brains sifting
through transparent wires attached
to rubber-hosed machines in musty rooms.
A million funerals moan inside the old graveyard
adjacent the First Methodist confines.
Gum-chewing embalmers gather
to sing a torch song to the driveling and the dying.
Sometimes it seems
I can hear the female choirs singing,
their high-pitched Latin refrains again.
They stand erect in the choir loft fingering missals.
The young girls up there,
wear choir togs and slithering plaid beanies.
They read the notes and eye the glowing boys below.
Jesus and the stained glass ghosts look up from earth.
Apocalypse Beans sizzle on the fire.
Their cackle reamed with burning forget-me-nots.
I won't be home
not For Christmas
nor for funerals
not for birthdays
Wanted to never see you
on those days so hard to get through.
When you abandoned the sweetness
and chased your dream into the alley
When you thought it best to see me cry!
When your mind changed with the direction of the wind
I stood there with spit on my fingertips...
holding my hand in the air, Waiting for the winds of hope
to blow your love and loyalty in my direction
Home is a strange city
where no one knows me.
where no one will invite me to sit across the table
and try to smile as I play with my stuffing on china with flowers
As I remember the children laughing and opening gifts.
I remember the long silent ride back to our house.
I think back when I got on my knees
before climbing into our cold bed
The prayers just uttered coming back void.
Ask God to just let you touch me again
I needed your body-heat to keep warm.
I needed your support to continue on
for the sake of the commitment.
For the sake of waiting for love to remind you
Even if pity could hold you there...
I would not be ashamed of what you sacrificed
When love had given birth to pity-
I would have held on without pride.
Now I never want to come back to that town.
Where no one cares that you don't love me.
I am in remission.
Alone but it's OK.
Please tell our future to visit me.
On the seashores.
The sun warms me in
my new home
where no one knows me.
All my old friends are
dead and dying. So...
I won't be home
not For Christmas
nor for funerals
not for birthdays
Wanted to never see you
on those days so hard to get through.
Just my spirit and the ocean.
and one day tell our grandchildren
Grandma will be here walking;
With one finger in the air moistened with spit.
to see which way the wind blows.
Walking away, I have done too many times,
I am left with memories that live in my rhymes;
at funerals- I have turned and walked away,
my beloved lay with the flowers that decay.
O, I walk away from my beloved with tears,
I return to cold tombs no matter how many years;
I have walked away from my sweet beloved pets,
putting my dearly loved in the hands of vets.
Walking away is something I seem to do well,
the pain of this turning away is my living hell;
this is a sorrow that no one ever forgets,
but loving is something no one ever regrets.
So when the dead are put to rest, I walk away,
but safe in my heart they will forever stay.
__________________________
December 14, 2015
Poetry/Rhyme/ Safe in My Heart
Copyright Protected ID 18-1604-424-01
All Rights Reserved. Written under Pseudonym.
Contest - Contest 495 Standard
Sponsor- Brian Strand
First Place