On evenings such as this, I wish I had
that inborn ache to cling to pen and page
and spread that sweet salve, ink, upon my thoughts.
But lost am I in spite of hindsight. Made
to gloss the details and emotions here
in voices strange from what I know or trust.
As such my words are handicapped to show
the brute ephemera I need my readers
locked away from my intent to know.
[Please note the rhyming there was not foreseen,
If anything the rhyme detracts the sheen.]
But still the message has to be declaimed:
     For no man taking pen and ink to page,
     was e'er a one a Shakespeare to his age.

(And mark you now the setting here does change)
O greater souls than I, I do beseech,
For here in cold packed earth are mortals bound.
Through mist and age the stones about ye crack
With Death triumphant making quiet rounds
About the silent earth, I plead to you
Good fellows, lasses tell me why you've died
What sins, what straws as would have broke a camel's back!

And from the ground a sound is faintly heard
By mine own ears as would a stomach turn
In any man that Fears his loving god.
The silence of the grave is cast with cries
Of silent sinners toiling in a Hell
Contained in plagued mourners' hearts.
They wrack
And reel in illusory pain constructed
By a mother, sister, husband, son
Who could not deal with earthly loss and so
Must feel sub-earthen torture nice-named
"Living After Death."
     And all God's children die in strife:
     A soul enslaved to an afterlife.

(Again be quick for here it doth conclude)
But let me not be chained with empty graves
Whose absence from this world is justified
By gentlemen in god's most high esteem,
Filled with souls who are not here but There.
I choose to breathe the clean world's air again
And not the stinking breath reposing in
A sepulchre.

Here grass grows brown and has no flowered gifts
Set down by loving family for show.
Yet still is it more pleasing to the mind
To lie on dying parched ground than to step
On land of pulchritude made for the dead.
And when I die, please cast me anywhere
Or burn me in the centre of the town
Or give me to a hated relative.
And think of me as but a passing dream
That sought to take the sum of your largesse
But never you impose seraphic dress
On memories of me as I did live,
     For no one can or should conceive
     What happens when we from a mortal’s ken gain leave.