modern funerals
applause in the chapel follows
endearments from family members
tacky 'representative' hits accompany
exhaustive sequences of projected photos
overflow rooms offer more screens
if you can't make or don't warrant a pew position
a life is 'celebrated'
sadness consigned to back burner
Bundling out platitudes by the cliche
a smooth-voiced disc jockey in a suit mc's
'through the good times and the bad'
as if many times were not stock neutral
and yet something of the dead one emerges
squeezed out between the forced rhymes
of ditties composed with love if not skill
delivered by shaken, shaky voices
a presence hovers absently over
we second-rate survivors
bw
|