Burial of the Dead
No canopic jars and fine Egyptian cotton.
No Viking sendoff, my corpse aflame
within a ship upon the sea,
for my carbon footprint is
quite sooty enough already.
No cremation with its
monoxide and dioxide.
No rouge and best suit,
veins filled to almost bursting
with chemicals, no.
Let me serve instead, cadaverous,
to teach the youngsters what a life
of genteel abuse of organs looks like
then feed me to the worms and compost pile
once my sentence of consciousness is served.
No Viking sendoff, my corpse aflame
within a ship upon the sea,
for my carbon footprint is
quite sooty enough already.
No cremation with its
monoxide and dioxide.
No rouge and best suit,
veins filled to almost bursting
with chemicals, no.
Let me serve instead, cadaverous,
to teach the youngsters what a life
of genteel abuse of organs looks like
then feed me to the worms and compost pile
once my sentence of consciousness is served.
Burial? Ha.
Let them burn me alive.*
I'm with you. Use as little energy as possible to get me in the ground so I can fertilize a cucumber. No coffin or vault. A cotton shroud should do it. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. The worms play pinochle on my snout.
Yes. And "sentence of consciousness" is such an interesting phrase/idea. Sentence implying a punishment that needs to be served. A lot to think about, as always with your poems, Gary. Thank you.
The idea that life is itself a curse. I identify.
Mighty tempting, and would that I would, yet isn't it in consideration of the survivors who loved us that we permit the rituals? Isn't "honoring the dead" really the dead accommodating the living? Yet, as always, you put forth the argument with artful precision. *****
"cadaverous." Very nice. Eschew the rituals, the ersatz traditions, the disguising of facts for the plain truth; this needing to be said.
No ashes *
"Let me serve instead, cadaverous,
to teach the youngsters what a life
of genteel abuse of organs looks like"
***
Thanks to all for your responses.
"genteel" abuse of organs? Why do I doubt that? I mean, not that I know you well, but we who are of a certain age were exposed to quite the smorgasbord of pharmaceuticals and barley, malt, fermented grapes, tobacco and black beauties in our day :-) *
Thanks, Gita.
A life well-lived; a death well-served.*
Thank you, Gary.
"For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." as poetic Gary. *
Thanks, Daniel.