you'll look nice in your grave,
pale and surrendered
to the earth,
All sins forgiven,
By the judging,
For death is sad,
And you won't know,
The faces who came,
To watch you go.
If you don't wait long,
You'll never see the sun again.
Ah,
Death is on my brain.

I didnt want to see her like that
After she taught me to live
They probably played her favorite music
I probably would have cried
Its too late to hug her goodbye
But i say it almost every day
Ive already said it once
And sang with some angels
I wasn't there at the funeral
But i will always be there

Nan,
I wrote this poem for you to keep
As you lie peacefully asleep
To share the stories you once told
Sat in your chair growing peacefully old

I will always remember those days
When I sat up to the table studying the maze
Of thousands of puzzle pieces in my gaze
However I was never fazed
Because you were always there to guide the way.

I will always remember your trips out and about
Although never adventurous I felt,
McDonald's and M&s; without doubt,
Were you favourite places to walkabout

I will always remember your creative flare,
Your knitting needles and you cross-stitch squares,
how you could sit and chat, yet knit with care
Always seemed so unfair  

But most of all, I wrote this poem to say thankyou
Not just from me but from all the family too
For the wisdom and knowledge you once shared
For showing you loved us and that you cared

I wrote this poem to say goodbye
As you watch us from up high
I remember all the fun times we had
As my friend and as my Nan
And I miss you more than words can say

I hope we can meet again someday

She wants the trumpets to play.
She wants them to play all day long until their lungs give out.
She wants to see them marching down the street, keeping the beat of another failing heart.
Don't start. I can't.
I cannot pick your roses,
I cannot breathe in the sulfur of your departed memories.
Don't make me weep at your parade.
She stayed long enough to orchestrate the players.
Stayed long enough to write the tunes.
Stayed long enough to make the costumes.
But not long enough to watch the charade.
Watch it blossom and screech and wail
There it goes down the street named after you.
There it goes with you at the helm,
Waltzing down to that other realm,
where we get to watch you pass.

Every thanksgiving,
My family gets smaller.
Gone to college. Gone traveling. Gone to another woman. Gone to Florida. Gone to prison.
Gone to see the lord.

Funerals are how
I visit the lord. God is drawn to eulogies.
He’s there, a fixture,
almost a cliche,
like a great aunt with a black veil
weeping into a floral
handkerchief.

Today, at this funeral,
a thin layer of snow and ice
has frozen the ground.
Black dress shoes
press ridged footprints into the
snow.

Every funeral I’ve ever
been to has been cold. Dress
clothes and peacoats
aren’t thick enough to keep
me warm during a funeral.
I keep my hands in my pockets and hunch forward,
watching my breath hit the winter wind.
The winter wind is
an evaporated sadness, like god.

During thanksgiving, the gravy boat
on the counter
let off hot, thin steam.  While pouring it thick
on my potatoes,
A shadow in the corner of the room caught my eye.

The days after a funeral are
filled with a confused, hopeful mysticism. Every moving shadow,
every unexplained noise
is a visitation.  

So I ****** my head towards the corner of the room. Nothing.
Glancing back at the table,
I look at his empty seat, reminded

how much I’m him. I’m quiet, like he was.
I
laugh like he laughed.
My teeth are as bad as his were.
I drink like he did when he was
my age,
days, nights at a time, stumbling home from dark pubs,
watching, with blurred vision,
my whisky breath hit the winter wind,
and evaporate, almost as fast as God.

After the turkey and the pie and the coffee,
I go down to the basement
and I pour myself a stiff
*** and coke.  

I drink, in silence, to the gone.

I am bored to death
Of this desire to play with
The heart of human child
For it has never given me  
Much amusement.

I am bored to death
And my soul, empty;
My soil vessel broken
When I wished to mend the splits
Lingering, lingering in your heart
Yet you stood up
Without my embrace.

I am bored to death
In this small town owned
By Mother Solitude where
Only angels speak to me,
Where I am hurt by my fault
My fear
My grace I have disdained;

I am bored to death
Of death; for the question repeated
For the blames I have done
For regrets, come at last
Redemption, sinned like ballad

I am bored to death
Of death
Whether it be hell;
Or heaven of days—
One I shall go
by the end of the day.

They visited the spot where his soul left his body.
Shot in the neck
Go get Mama
His very last words.
The blood was still there
She was told to wait in the car
Too innocent for such passionate danger.
Mother pressed her hand to the
concrete
Feeling the permanent loss of her only son.

Hundreds packed into that dull
gray church basement
So many unaware of the secrets
That died with him,
that maybe brought them there.
Murmurs of who and how and why
That distant uncle, locked away
Could it be his fault?
A little girl too young to understand
death and violence
Leaves her stuffed friend
To keep him company
Amidst the piles of Hennessy and gold.

Hundreds in procession
Leading the living to that final goodbye.
The city has a way of bringing out the worst in people.
Stone-faced grandmother,
how heavy does her heart feel?
Mother wailing as mothers do
Her worries come to life in this death
Watching as they lowered him
and his treasure
deep into the earth
A part of herself
A part of us all
Buried there.

I hate you for keeping me up tonight,
Worry running through my veins as I ask myself,
"Will tonight be the night he does it?"
You won't answer your phone.
******* it, please just answer your phone.
My stomach churns as I wait for your call,
Or worse: The Call.
I've only been to two funerals in my life,
Both for grandparents that I barely knew.
I'm trying to figure out what I'd say at yours.
Would I speak in front of your mourning relatives,
Spitting out cliches about Heaven
And how you're in a better place now?
Would I break down and cry,
Sobbing as they carried you from the church to a car
To a hole in the earth made just for you?
Or would I just sit there, numb,
Empty because everything that made me who I am
Was buried in that ******* hole with you?
You're a coward, I'd say.
An absolute ******* coward.
But maybe I'm a coward, too,
Because the thought
Of having to pick out a dress for your funeral
Makes me want to swallow a handful of pills
And be buried right beside you.
God ******* **** it, don't leave me.
*Please.

We enter the church and immediately
have to push through two dozen sobbing Italian women
dabbing dry eyes; their tissues only show
black and multi-colored smears. Amid the echoing
“Oh my Goawd”s, they lean down and kiss my sister’s cheeks,
but even in my best black cap sleeves, I am the taboo
to my cousin Janet, a woman as barren as the stone lot
in between her husband’s restaurant and Deihl’s Autoshop.

We find an empty pew, and watch as the men
stride down the aisle, contestants
in a cultural Miss America pageant where the wrong answer
gets you whacked. Their heavy brows
sink in condolence as they hand over stacks of bills,
every hundred becoming a pity penny
for all the moments Janet lost in her luxury-life
made shiny by diamonds and cars and fur coats
which can’t be cashed in for a second chance at a family.

The men have paid for the food, the china, the band
in the corner meant to fill the space of sadness—
a reminder that we live a lavish life.
My sister shifts in her seat and as a man walks
by she touches his jacket, and gasps.
He’s a god.