Requiem of a poet
The day of my funeral will be a Saturday. One attributed to rest, though this time it shall be eternal. And the weather will be cold, with a mixture of tears and ink stains, some dried but most erasable. The guest list alone would make the headlines of any number of corruptible newspapers, burying my farewell next to an ad of abandonment or perhaps above a distorted corner of the weekly crossword puzzle, faded into the page with a bit of spilled coffee.
I see the mood around the room as black, reflecting the images of a life unfulfilled in any photographer’s best attempt to bring out the colors of regret and shame. The state of disarray amongst the pallbearers leads me to believe the flask behind the vase of choked red roses has quickly evaporated its contents. One would only guess it appropriate on such a day when paper meets pen, only to feed a fire meant to warm the feet of children.
My visitors, one by one, stream past my lifelessness as if taking part in a ritual best suited for the cafeteria, staring blankly at a variety of not caring and wishes of another place and time. But like good soldiers they come, give homage to the poet. And I must announce to the entire world how uncomfortable this casket is, though it looks the part, it just doesn’t quite fit someone, who like me only needed the stars of heaven and the scent of wildflowers.
Now to the guests of this jovial event, though without the fun, cheeriness and good humor I would have expected, I jot down their names. Because it would only seem rude to bring all those things along that made me, well me. If you scan among the room you see a menagerie, those who resulted because of a variety of things I’ve just happened to been around to see or do. Or in any case imagine to the point that the delusion comes alive.
Notice first the group holding the now empty flask. The ever weary pallbearers who are now finished with their task of hauling dead weight, my dead weight around the streets as if to find me a parking place closest to the entrance. Pacing around and around carrying the burden until a spot opens up. It just happened to be next to the Chevy van of Suicide Girls who took time to pose next to my stiff limbs, now filled with the embalmer’s private stock. In the back, in one of the darkest corners shades of lipstick from a number of indiscretions huddle close to the restroom hoping not to toss their cookies on the funeral parlor’s tale telling carpeting. The one I feel closest, is one who scarred my heart the deepest, keeps the farthest distance, screaming words that make no sound. And the only thing I can do is pretend they are words of love, whispers of why forever lasted only for a day, short but sweet.
And as the elite, those of fame and fortune approach, they never seem to look at straight at me. Their gaze has always looked past or perhaps even through me, as though I was just a layer to an overall image of nothing. But nonetheless they are here if only to appease the conscience of my own vanity to be king. And Mother dressed in the blackest black, holding open her womb wanting to take me back in, to smother and control as I rot away beneath the constellations of Orion, Cancer and Ursa Minor. She holds on from start to finish keeping the graves deep, filling each hole with the children she herself bore.
The requiem of a poet has many dimensions. Countless facets of enduring triumphs and failures, that makes the whole a fragmented mirror. Yet it comes together due to the madness of his words that can be read with an eye of perception, interpreted by only you. And with every word the poet’s story unfolds into a piece of you, becoming what you needed in the first place.
Someone to feel you.
