Where does my shadow end
and I begin?
Or, contrariwise,
where is my ending
and my shade’s beginning?

Captive
in my body’s helpless
state,
I am aware
of the detestable
but inexorable
consuming of my body
by its shadow.

Decomposing bodies.
swollen stomachs
hollow sunken eyes
Beaten and degraded
Less than animals
Music bursts forth from their wounds
The blood long since gone from dried veins.

Those chimneys stand there still
As vast totem poles
To pay silent tribute
To those six million souls
They will be reborn
as new flowers from the dust,
new life from death.
Remember them
but for an accident of birth
it might have been you . . .
or me.

I want to see her one more time;
One more time to say the things
I should have said before;
One more time to say I’m sorry
and how much I deplore
the ill-concealed behaviour
that she could not ignore.

I want to see her one more time;
One more time to gaze upon
that so beloved face;
One more time to visualise
that look of peace and grace
so unappreciated
while it was commonplace

If only I could see her one more time,
I’d be able to expiate my crime,
express  contrition
for that disgraceful act
unintentionally hurtful
and more a lack of tact.
If I were granted only one more time.

Like a bad smell that’s gone viral, like a **** within a ****,
To expel it in a spiral is effectively an art
You may squeeze it out quite gently, or let it just go rip,
You may do it differently, hold it in a tight clenched grip,
Knowing it will not be anything like lavender in bloom
As the **** moves like a zephyr sending fumes around the room.
Like the noises that I find coming out of my behind.

Like a small bug that’s attacked me, like pill on top of pill
What it does to my digestion is a matter of ill will
If I know that it is bad for me why do I ask for more?
Like one tequila, two tequila, three tequila - floor!
I have a simple question, Is it something that I ate?
If I wasn’t meant to eat it, why’d you put it on my plate,
Producing noises undefined coming out of my behind?

Food that gurgles in my belly, drink that goes right to my head,
Why does my stomach rumble every time I go to bed?
Like a morsel that you swallow, it simply holds its own
As it travels through a passage where the sun has never shone;
And though it would appear that my obsessive petomania
May be derived from meat that I once ate in Transylvania,
I hope you will excuse me; I don’t mean to be unkind,
And I know that this last comment is completely unrefined,
But take your nasty thoughts and blow them out of your behind

There were so many superstars
Conducting somber seminars
And I’ve attended many in my time.

And they seemed to take for granted
We could only be enchanted;
That their facilitation is sublime

And since those presentations are
Now displaced by the webinar
Their pedagogic hubris is enlarged.

And they can add computer skill
To their old-fashioned power drill
Engagement thus is positively charged.

And we still can choose to slumber
Through a course no longer somber
The internet will simply intercede

So gird your ***** and drop your guard
Send reverence to the graveyard;
The superstar is an endangered breed

I’ve reached the age when most of my contemporaries have
kicked the bucket,
turned up their toes,
popped their clogs,
and other such unsavoury activities.  
I take every opportunity
to memorialise their lives.
The question I ask myself is:
when I finally pop my clogs,
kick the bucket, and so on
who will provide the tribute to me?  

De mortuis nil nisi bonum is the Latin phrase
of Greek invention.
Speak nothing but good of the dead.
I cannot accept this.
What good can I speak of Adolf ******,
Osama Bin Laden
or even Senator Joe McCarthy?
Better would be De mortuis nil nisi veritas.  
Speak nothing but the truth.  
But, if I had to choose one for my own obituary,
I think I would turn to the late, great Harold Laski,
who coined De mortuis nil nisi bunkum.

I’d be very happy to have nothing but claptrap
talked about me.
after my demise.
At least let there be something written,
be it good,
truth
or codswallop