Short Obituaries Poems

STRANGE HOBBY
"reading the obituaries just to see if you are still alive"
Indiana Shaw . . .

"Do me" . . . : /...

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I'm lost in words
I cannot write a poem
Is this a word depression
I await wet Autumn afternoons
for obituaries on past poets
Dead horizons roll on their heads
towards an uncertain future...

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Another burial....
                   ...  condolences,
deep emotional feelings
grieving hearts imbue jeweled kinships,
lasting memories,
needing obituaries
peace, quietude, rest
succumb to undertaker
vestiges withered
'xpired, yielded.
zeroed...

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Sometimes I scroll on the obituaries,
and see people who had dreams, life,
and something to live for;
I see their eyes looking back at me,
with “you have something to live for”,
glowing in their eyes…..


Word Count: 37

Date: 25/02/2017...

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This is what they used to do,
Grandpa's made their own rules,
Sit on verandah on sunny morn,
Read the sport, paper at dawn,
Then to read the obituaries,
Ensure still alive, you see,
Finally, they passed to glory,
Grandpas so loved, their story!...

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Magazine ads and newspaper obituaries
skitter across the streets
like tumbleweed in the desert.
Rims the size of carriage wheels roll by.
Everyone's holsters are filled,
even the children carry pistols.
The schools are ghost towns
but the saloons stay occupied.
This is the Wild, Wild West....

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Newspaper

useful, informative

updating, revealing, rewarding

community, classified, politics, obituaries

enraging, appalling, depressing

precarious, sorrowful-

Psalmbook


June 9, 2019

~3rd Place~
Contest: Sparkling Diamonds
Sponsor: Joseph May
Judged: 06/25/2019
...

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STAYING ALIVE III

reluctant to sleep
your days going by so fast
obituaries?
many friends have seen their last
oh    god    those mortuaries!

must watch one’s diet
if it tastes good    don’t try it
bland to the taste
sweet things are seldom healthy
 each day you measure your waist

obesity fear
daily on television
“our very worst year”
diet a hard decision
choice    to live a few more years...

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Death and its mournful tidings
Obituaries and eulogies, read
Black ties and black veils, all in rows
Surround this shell and the open earth
The cold, damp wind sashays through and through
Memories, half a century old are lost and forgotten
A flight of geese overhead, perform a last flyover
Victory in death
Vestiges of family, say farewell and Godspeed
Tomorrow brings colder and damper weather...

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I hesitated to say that what we
had was special, it was what it 
was, we made it through and that 
was enough.

Now that we’re older and reading
obituaries of old bastards, we 
never thought would die, perhaps 
there’s a place at the top of that 
hill in the park we walk the dogs 
in, for a bench with our names 
on it where we can sit to look back 
and admire the view while we’re 
still around....

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Sometimes the wholeness of the universe
Comes along like a black widow spider
On a thin thread and stops in front of one’s face

From fear and dread
All time stops
As the eight-legged spider
With eighty-eight eyes stare directly

Consumed with death and obituaries
Sleeplessness nights and tragic endings
The black widow spider a symbol of eternity and 
life cycles like the center of the universe pauses...

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Before entering this world 
we transform our soul 

The gramophone 
plays songs 
of mutilated destination 

midwife of Death 
hatched her eggs 
Breeding a dark 
Questionary of Blankness

Lament to 
  Humanity 
where art thou? 

Does the corset suit you? 
Can it show the shape of Love? 

Do you read your own obituaries 
remembering the scent 
you bore? 

Have you ever been 
a child? 

Remember the Sun 
bears 
stigma 
of starlight...

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Self-Inquiry..
"Not this..Not this"
That old-timey formula to find 
One's true self..then updated:
Not nothing..not everything
A viral communique..then
This news flash:
Not-even-nothing..not-even-everything..
All of these "Nots" left the self
Bruised but resilient..still standing.. 
Yet..
This obscure notice could always be
Found buried in the Obituaries:
The self inquires..the self is inquiry
Freedom is already as inquiry dies..
Apparently......

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Before entering this world 
we transform our soul 

The gramophone 
plays songs 
of mutilated destination 

midwife of Death 
hatched her eggs 
Breeding a dark 
Questionairy of blankness 

Lament to 
  Humanity 
where art thou? 

Does the corset suit you? 
Can it show the shape of Love? 

Do you read your own obituaries 
remembering the scent 
you bore? 

Have you ever been 
a child? 

Remember the Sun 
bears 
stigma 
of starlight...

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Obituaries like to say
About how someone died:
"Peacefully at home" and yet,
I wonder if they've lied.

Just once I'd like to see in print
That So-and-So passed on
While kicking up the biggest fuss
Until his strength was gone.

When Dylan Thomas wrote, "Do not
Go gentle," what he meant
Was not to peacefully succumb.
(I wonder how he went.)

I hope that when my time arrives
I throw a major fit
And that my husband tells the truth
If he posts an obit....

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