"pallbearers" poems
A true story of a chance gathering of strangers in the back room of a Gelato Parlor *** restaurant, two years ago, in a little village near the bay, on a land surrounded by vineyards. Come visit.
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Gelato Nation
There is a place,
location secret,
mine to keep,
mine with which
you to tease,
make you envious,
a back room 'office'
jealous guarded
by a barkeep,
whose chosen invites sweeps
you into a reality that is
what you will it to be.
But nota bene, note well,
remembrances of things swell
from your past be the
only tongue spoken here.
Code word entry only,
a shared whisper.
Perhaps One Woman,
may reveal its pleasures,
if she so chooses,
which are:
gelato laughs, poetry snaps,
Beatle songs sung ensemble,
by rag tag strangers
self-collected accidentally,
sung de rigeur off key
by voices lubricated by
cognac, laughter, and
the coldest of white wines,
issue of the very soil
upon which we sit.
Words to value properly,
not in my possess to capture
the few moments in time when;
Strangers transform themselves
into a triple A nation united,
that will never be
S&P; downgraded.
A holy alliance
celebrating July 4th
all night long,
all participants
signatory witnesses to
its gelato conception,
as well as pallbearers
to its last drink dissolution,
the fullness of its lifetime
a vintage of a few hours extant,
a vintage, once drunk, is
a history, forever gone.
Mixologists please record:
One playwright, a psychologist, bond trader and a social scientist
with a dash of museum director,
and do not forget the
Hundred Year Old Woman,
whose Dowager Princess Daughter
(she, a mere eighty)'
from Central Park West
clarifies all of life dilemmas with
the singular analytical tool of:
But is it good for the Jews?
**But t'is the barkeep
who is the leavening
in this evenings human
pastry-petrie dish.**
He makes the pastiche,
the ions of personalities,
coalesce best,
guitar strummer,
singer of songs that were our
multiple national anthems
when we were pseudo-rebels
starting out on our
long and winding roads.
Long the King of the Keep!
Long live the memory of our
Gelato Nation,
may it stay sweet in
our antique collection of
the best moments of
our intersecting lives.
July 2011
Jul 4, 2013
Jul 4, 2013 at 6:00 PM UTC
No one is perfect
Or expected to be
Unless you happen to share a gene or two with this sort
And as if their generation was completely right
(the pattern of perceived perfection is a long lineage)
They pass their judgment
One generation to the next
The gossip makes its way across state lines
The tale of manipulation and corruption
Bred within our borders
Finds its place with mythical tales
Of mobsters and cat burglars
On cops
You work your magic
Sweet-talking people out of money
Not even Satan’s speech was so smooth
Talent for memorizing numbers
Credit card
Pin
But not your grandmother’s
Stuns all
If she knew of your antics
Pallbearers would have a heavy load
But fear not
Keeping secrets from the old and feeble
Is our talent
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 1:30 PM UTC
Night funeral
In Harlem:
Where did they get
Them two fine cars?
Insurance man, he did not pay--
His insurance lapsed the other day--
Yet they got a satin box
for his head to lay.
Night funeral
In Harlem:
Who was it sent
That wreath of flowers?
Them flowers came
from that poor boy's friends--
They'll want flowers, too,
When they meet their ends.
Night funeral
in Harlem:
Who preached that
Black boy to his grave?
Old preacher man
Preached that boy away--
Charged Five Dollars
His girl friend had to pay.
Night funeral
In Harlem:
When it was all over
And the lid shut on his head
and the ***** had done played
and the last prayers been said
and six pallbearers
Carried him out for dead
And off down Lenox Avenue
That long black hearse done sped,
The street light
At his corner
Shined just like a tear--
That boy that they was mournin'
Was so dear, so dear
To them folks that brought the flowers,
To that girl who paid the preacher man--
It was all their tears that made
That poor boy's
Funeral grand.
Night funeral
In Harlem.
4.2k
I can bear the burden of honesty, I can bear the burden of equality, and yet the burden of solitude crushes me like the world upon Atlas. If I can take the burdens of another, would they be willing to help save me too? We can all exist in this world with personal burdens, but those shared burdens are often held by the people who are at peace. The broken burdens that people have dropped along the way are picked up by another. The burdens of the dead can be found in the hearts of the pallbearers. The burdens of the poor can’t be seen through the eyes of the wealthy. The burdens of those who are hurt are hidden deep in their hearts. Yet I often see through their heart and yearn to help them, but they have walled off their heart from even themselves. The scars of their past burden them the worst making their lives heavy and tight, as though they will become like the stone of their walled hearts. I hope to remove Medusa’s curse from all those afflicted by pain, and I hope I can see through a fake smile.
Oct 13, 2013
Oct 13, 2013 at 2:38 AM UTC
On the pier of life I sit,
dangling in my thoughts.
Days past I'd be fishing
for the stars,
happy in my thoughts.
A small fish here,
a small fish there,
it mattered.
I had something.
Now my eyes close
to the horizon,
to my reflection of the sea,
and to life.
Birds flock to the skies,
in harmony,
with the wind,
with each other,
over singing trees
and ryhming seas,
in communal and in chorus.
My dark eyes look up,
mournful.
For how I thirst the album of life,
fervent and epic.
Resigned I sit,
my shoulders sagging,
my closing feet dangling
at the end of the pier.
I close my eyes
and think of my pallbearers,
laughing.
I imagine their lips,
curt little whispers,
my epithaph,
he did get his feet wet in life.
Logan Robertson
3/30/2018
Mar 30, 2018
Mar 30, 2018 at 11:37 PM UTC
Because I could not stop for Love,
She kindly stopped for me.
And I collapsed into her arms,
Cured then of being free.
In a golden carriage far we drove
Off cliffs and over rises.
Each time I felt sure that I'd died
But Love never lacks surprises.
And we passed Death along the road,
I waved but he would not reply-
I pounded on the windows gold
But he mutely passed me by.
For Love sat not with me inside
But whipped the horses viciously.
I asked her why and she replied,
"Love means no company."
We passed a church and, out behind,
A graveyard glowing in the dusk,
Two lovers' silhouettes defined
Beside a tombstone, clasped in lust.
We passed a darkened house and there
A lanky boy threw pinging pebbles.
And as the light when on, the air
Was filled with midnight funeral bells.
We passed a first kiss, slow and sweet,
Two schoolgirls shamed but still adoring,
And every time their lips would meet
A raven hoarsely tried to sing.
We passed a man and wife's "I do."
And peering through the stained glass window
Pallbearers paused their work to see
The other face of sorrow.
One thought gloats over all I see,
"When all is said and done,"
I muse in silent reverie,
"Love leaves you quite alone."
Because I could not stop for Love,
She kindly stopped for me.
And I will die my deathless death
For all eternity.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 7:03 PM UTC
Color me in.
I lie naked and
wrapped in white linen-
A corpse.
If only my mind could
lie still as my body.
Let them carry me
to the incinerator.
But the pallbearers
have heard my death rattle,
they've found me out.
But I am an island now.
It is quiet here, only
remnants of Chopin
and little gold rings,
ashes,
a story in Braille,
what else have you got?
I'm so tired of being
the Phoenix in this tale.
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 10:07 PM UTC
4:10 AM, Thanksgiving Day
he lost his breath for good while I watched
In his thirties
lungs weak from polio and huffing Marlboros
Saturday I held one corner of his glossy box
his pricey glossy box
that was to be covered
with free soil
Some spring eve a quarter century later
the old writer
who told his tales well into his eighties
slipped into hospice sleep
and at his widow’s request
I got to hold up another corner
and place another flower
on another fancy shining tomb
Another thousand times
since then
I carried the ironic weight of lives
not all the way to their holy holes
but inch by inch towards the unknown
my shoulder sinking a bit more each time
while I searched for some epiphany in rhyme
we all bear the pall
of everyone’s fall
each has one shoulder sorely bent
regardless of who chose to repent
so as we walk with this worldly weight
someone else helps shape our fate
for try as we may to walk alone
our time is never solely our own
We are the pallbearers, pallbearers
for all
Aug 24, 2012
Aug 24, 2012 at 7:25 PM UTC
In the half light of the
Dying sun
Blood falls from her lips
Puts dark beads in
The sand
Around her fingers.
She traces the shape
Of her teeth
With
A tender tongue.
Taste of rust and redness.
A grimacing bloodstained
Smile
Stretches her aching cheeks
As tears slide from
A swelling eye and
The air
Echoes with the sound
Of her
Breaking laughter.
The waves moan in reply,
Licking up
The droplets of blood
And caressing
Her kneeling legs.
She breathes deeply through
A bruised nose.
It won't be long now.
Closes her eyes.
Morning finds her sleeping,
Face down
And out to sea
Her body haloed by a
A ring of dark color
Obscured
By the blackest blue.
The fishes are her pallbearers,
The horizon is her headstone.
Dec 29, 2012
Dec 29, 2012 at 6:29 PM UTC
*white knuckled pallbearers
for open handed corpses
silent as the pastor
emotionlessly
reads the rehearsed eulogy
i learn that funerals
were never meant
for the dead
they were always meant
for those left alive
because you haven't truly lived
until you've died inside*
[holyoak]
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 3:01 AM UTC
if you come to me
I will show you my cupboard
photographs, paintings of old days
dead butterfly, dead firefly
torn snake skin
old is never gold,
pain and anger.......................
broken leaves, dust around
dead grasshopper
dead caterpillar, owl and mice
moon
beam
playing alone
far away
pallbearers carrying the coffin
at the funeral..............
(C)asoke kumar mitra, march,11,2015 :21:24
Mar 11, 2015
Mar 11, 2015 at 11:55 AM UTC
i took a corpse
to the mall
on SUNDAY
(it was a religious experience)
& the weird thing is
she drove.
& when i got into her
car
or casket
or whatever
we hugged & kissed (like relatives)
but that was it
then she went stiff
again.
a tattooed statue at the wheel
& me
coughing up embalming fluid
amongst the cigarette smoke
i whispered out the window.
& you winced as we wiggled
between winnebagos & station wagons,
sloooooooooooooooowly
like pallbearers
balancing
a box,
or like a mother
placing an infant
in a crib,
hand behind its head.
& she understated the overture
so i sort of never understood
we were ending
up as enemies
all before the engine
stopped.
& it was winter but i was overheating
smoky breathing &
the words i couldn't reach &
the heaviness of my chest,
the weight of waiting.
but she never said another word
as we walked through the mall
& i floated next to her
like a ghost
or a balloon she was holding
& she grasped
at something new to try on
& let go of me
& i floated
& floated...
Jan 2, 2012
Jan 2, 2012 at 6:16 PM UTC
Scars are fireworks.
They dance like breaths,
breath, pause, breath, pause.
Breathing is a cry for help.
You brushed my forehead with your fingertips
like wind and smiles and time
and what kisses are supposed to be.
Like time, time, time,
memory typewriters tick and tock.
They sound like footsteps,
like pallbearers and raindrops
and heartbeats and whispers and
time and time and time and time.
Scars are like spiderwebs
and patterns in half-full coffee mugs
and scales that shield, that measure.
and they're like empty stairs
and definitions the textbook wouldn't accept.
Scars are dreams.
A skirt and skin and whatever else that implies.
Scars are consensual, like sugarcoated suicides.
Scars are bodies.
Bend them, break them,
cracked contortionists.
Watch stardust pours from eyes
and arcing, narrow roads.
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 8:38 PM UTC
Each morning I tune into my mirror,
watch
as life gets old.
And I wonder if anyone ever did it better to this point.
Handled it with more strength or integrity.
If I'm the worst or the best,
or the grey or the barnacle suckling the grey.
Each morning while stuck in traffic,
I ask
if anyone else sees the same circle ****
the masochism of the daily grind sign-up sheet
covered with signatures,
if all the bloodsuckers,
lions, and pallbearers
have any knowledge or drive of another direction.
Each night I accuse a different soul of a heinous lie.
Certainly,
somebody is responsible for the routine, the chasm,
the symphony of silent screams, fired in the name of
a lesser meaning.
Dec 10, 2010
Dec 10, 2010 at 12:14 PM UTC
A maul is not an axe;
an axe is not a maul.
One is for splitting,
the other for felling.
Of course to trees
such distinctions
are immaterial.
Walnut rounds
scattered on grass
stare into juniper
scratching the sky—
tall pallbearers
shiver in wind,
whisper above
dead medallions,
unblinking eyes.
The handle I hold
like a divining rod;
metal blade forged
by inchoate words,
honed on grinding
letters of precision.
Nov 2, 2016
Nov 2, 2016 at 3:05 PM UTC
nine … dark angels to herald my passing,
eight … lost souls to guide my spirit,
seven … robed priests to intone my story,
six … pallbearers to shoulder my coffin,
five … old crones to wail and moan,
four … gravediggers to prepare my tomb,
three … black cats to ward off evil,
two … black crows my spirit to bear,
one heart broken: love unbound …
Dec 22, 2012
Dec 22, 2012 at 12:12 PM UTC
That last needle to ***** your skin
will set you free
from every prison you’ve lived in
or dreamt of.
But the Fathers will be too old
and the Sons too young
to carry your casket.
Does it bother you that women
will be your pallbearers?
Or have you always known that
we would put you to ground?
Oct 21, 2011
Oct 21, 2011 at 1:20 PM UTC
Melodies play in the passing days of grey with remorse in the notes of woe. The Sorrows tune, which flows in the colors of anger and shame! The forgotten names, that hang the heavy head hang to end in rope and rafter and regret. Pallbearers hoist the match stick man, yet strike the flame and consume the land, smoldering blood to ash.
Jun 18, 2012
Jun 18, 2012 at 12:10 AM UTC
Where mothers wail,
family, friend, and foe
gather in last respect
and jovial sadness,
greeted by whiskey and tea, in the aftermath of moths wearing black vails, stepping on flytrap petals,
walking down the aisle of the pallbearers wedding.
Aug 20, 2019
Aug 20, 2019 at 3:46 PM UTC
oh recite
to the same
snow bent
tree
for which
the roof
of this house
waits
this wish
to attend
sparsely
the box
of dreaming-
for the sleep
we need
keeps us
so long
awake
that in the morning
we send
our sons
Aug 2, 2012
Aug 2, 2012 at 4:14 PM UTC
There's not a whole lotta nothing
That can be dug out of the grave
Of this life's buried problems
Of all our past mistakes
You can chisel out the tombstone
Making room for all the dates
Of the didn't go the way we planed
That in the dirt now lay to waste
Call in the Pallbearers
To shoulder it all
To help carry the burden
Of where you left off
Hire professional wailers and mourners
To cry for the loss
But can you really afford
Such an extravagant cost
When all is said and done
The last word the preacher will say
Is there's not a whole lotta nothing
That can be dug out of the grave
Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 8:04 AM UTC
A poet's disposition is happy,
No time for those moods so ******
Sighting the good each tedious day,
Even as others for peace earnestly pray.
Joining hands with torch bearers,
Guidance of the steps of pallbearers.
Watering thoughts of verse weavers,
They are messengers of burden relievers.
Abhor bloodshed but love the ink,
To foster the ground with green and pink,
Full of wisdom and free from double think,
To promote the love, peace and soulful drink
"Live and let live" a poetic theme,
In and around each color scheme,
To eradicate the disparities in eye beam,
Conquer all strife with Love's cream.
©Perveiz Ali
Mar 18, 2016
Mar 18, 2016 at 6:59 AM UTC