Super-sized Series

 Funeral Humor

 

 

Photo by Al Knutson taken of his mother’s coffin

 

My Father Present Beyond his Death by Rose Mary Boehm

My father was always the one with the twinkle
in his bright, blue eyes.
My father was the one with the silliest Dad jokes.
We laughed about us laughing about them.

When his eyes stopped twinkling forever,
I flew in from London.
A face that could have been my father’s.
Strangely dark-blue, his hands claws, his fingernails
made from life on another planet.

My brother and I first in line behind the coffin.
Six black beetles with hats and white gloves
accompanying the now closed coffin,
the contraption rolling it along the grassy paths
of the cemetery to the assigned rectangle
dug the night before.
The beetles let down the coffin.

I could hardly see.
A warm rain filled my eyes,
a big lump made my heart too heavy.
The coffin hit the bottom of the pit with a bump.
The beetles pulled up those strings,
rolled them up, put them away. Then they
pulled off their white gloves and threw them
into the open wound that was my father’s grave.

Couldn’t help it, looked sideways at my brother
who got it. We grinned at each other under tears.
Waited for the little black hats to go in next,
then then pants, then the rest.
Watery, silent giggles.
We held hands.

The chapel.
Behind a too short curtain some woolen
stockings in brown, sensible shoes pumped the pedals
to fill the bellows of the harmonium.
The first of the holy medley was a hymn
to which my father had made up some rather unholy lyrics
that always had us in stitches.
I looked across the aisle.
Even my mother smiled.

 

 

The Perfection by Paul Hostovsky

On the way to bury you
a yellow BMW (a bee
among the mourners)

was weaving in and out of our little
lit line of grief
winding down route 22 to the cemetery.

It made me think of you—the restlessness,
the thoughtlessness—the way
he fell in line with us, then left us,

then the left lane slowed and he was back again.
I wondered if the sun drowned out the lights
that strung our private darkness faintly together.

Or maybe, seeing the lights,
he saw the darkness had the right of way
and swung into our midst to overtake us,

this acrobat among the yarmulkes,
now flying out in front, now closing ranks
behind the rabbi’s car.

I always thought you’d recognize yourself
eventually, a long time afterwards maybe,
the way you used to be when you couldn’t help it

or see it even, and seeing it finally,
and in someone else, it would feel a little like love,
only love a little too late.

Mostly it felt like perfection as we turned
that corner into the cemetery,
and out he shot, the bee, as from a jar,

as if he’d suffocate to death if death
contained him any longer,
a thin blue cloud of exhaust

hanging in the air behind him like a veil.

First appeared in Comstock Review  

 

 

Dear Funeral Director by Tina Hacker

When the time comes, just remember these words:
“No one does my make-up but me.”
I want a closed casket.
Closed so tight that no one can open it,
not even you. Use roof nails.
Talk to my husband. He can describe
the glories of those nails for five full minutes--
how they’ve got barbs and hooks,
and how even the hand of God
couldn’t pull one of those suckers out.
And don’t let any relative tempt
you to open the lid. You’ve done that
to my family before, when my father died.
Don’t pretend you didn’t do it.
And if you think the real reason why
I want a closed casket is the fear
of looking like a “painted lady,”
you’re wrong.
I’ve been called that my whole life,
and I don’t care.
In fact, I think that epithet is a compliment.
I’m right up there with those Victorian houses
that sell for two mill these days.
Be sure to place my make-up bag beside me,
and put a mirror inside the lid
just in case a little miracle happens,
not a Red Sea miracle,
or quite a Lazarus miracle,
but maybe a small earthquake
that rattles the nails out of their holes,
and shakes me alive just long enough
for me to fix my lipstick and smooth the lines
under my eyes before the lid goes sailing off.

Previously published in Cutting It, The Lives You Touch Publications, 2010   

 

Notice from the Sweet Chariot Funeral Parlor by Marilyn L. Taylor
                         Due to predicted overcrowding in our
                         cemeteries, a new service is available
                         which will see to packing and storing
                         one’s remains in a space capsule for
                         eventual launching into Earth’s orbit.
                                                  -Discover Magazine
Dear Friend, we
               are operating at capacity
       and cannot
               supply a green and grassy spot
       for your tomb,
               as there is no more room.

       Instead, you are invited to entrust
               your dust
       to our space-age morticians, who seal
               in stainless steel
       (thanks to post-Newtonian science)
               our clients.

        Whereupon you
               (and all your shiny loved ones, too)
        shall ascend
               via chartered rocketship, to spend
        eternity
               very near where Heaven used to be.

Originally published in Raintown Review  

Sabbatical by Alan Walowitz
 
Being a good boy never was so easy:
the tables set, the garbage taken out,
the mothers not ignored.
And even now, years since being good
failed to be its own reward;
the cats are fed, books properly stowed,
the wives have been laid,
sometimes left satisfied.
 
I’d rather I knew how
to curl up in a corner with some trash.
Take the time I’m owed easy.
Let the clock on the wall
beat a lonesome tattoo.
Let the auditors scour the books
and track the embezzled hours.
Let doctors search for the pulse
that sleeps deep inside my being.
 
I’ll wiggle a toe
when they carry me out
should I decide
I’m staying.
 
originally appeared in The Poems of the Air (Red Wolf Press)    

The End, Delayed by Ethan Goffman

I had thought about staging my own funeral, sneaking in to view it, like Huck Finn. It would be the only time people would gather to praise me. Long lost family members would reappear, proclaim their love for me, though they never bothered to do so while I was alive.

One thing keeps me from staging my own death, though. What if no one bothered to show up at the funeral and I just crouched behind a scraggly stand of bushes, gazing at emptiness?

Previously published in Dreamscapes   

The Diagnosis Was Wrong by Shaun R. Pankoski

Death and I sit down together
fairly often these days-
have little chats over coffee,
make plans. Who knew
we'd have so much in common,
be such great friends?
He's a big picture guy,
as am I, likes ideas,
like me. And time alone.
Which is why
we're taking a break soon.
Even the best friendships need space.

 

 First published in Verse-Virtual.  

Two poems by Joe Cottonwood

Last Ride

Lay my body
bed of my pickup,
Ford served me well.
Face up so I see redwoods, sky.
Spread my tool belt over my waist.
Let me hear jingle
    of screws, knife, tape.

Drive me
where mustard overgrows old cars,
where chickens sleep on roads,
where creeks overflow,
    where artichokes grow.

Stop at Pomponio,
best little beach on the coast.
Bear my pall over dunes,
step mindful of nesting plover.
Lay me among sand dollars etched like me.
    Light candles.

Take me, tide.
Accept me, driftwood,
brothers and sisters of grain.

(never published)

 

Bury Me in a Redwood Forest

May redwood roots tickle my bones.
May my blood rise as tinted sap.
May my arms lift as limbs to sunlight,
    may I embrace the rain.
May these muscles bear massive growth,
    may they bend and flex
    through squall and storm.
May the over-abundant hair of my body
    become filaments of shaggy bark.
May fingers and toes become needles of green,
    may the chickadee clutch with tiny feet.
May my dreams flow to cones, become seed.
May my words whistle with the wind
    spreading stories, tall tales.
May my unworthy spirit surge
    with the glory of sequoia.
May the hawk build a nest at my crown,
    may the fox hover at my hollow.
May I resist the rot, repel the insect,
    and when at last I fall
may I be sectioned, milled, notched and nailed,
may I become the soul of a house
    peopled with children,
    crafted with love.

first appeared in Red Eft Review

 

What To Do With My Body After I Die by Sharon Waller Knutson

Cremation is cheaper, my husband says.
But the voice of the Pentecostal preacher
still echoes in my head, You’ll burn
in hell for your sins. Why did I give up
clandestine rendezvous, Kalua & cream,
and filet mignon to burn my body
until it turns to dust like the dirt
I vacuumed up for years
when I had more fun sinning?

The undertaker shows me stainless
steel boxes that keep bodies
preserved like pickled pigs feet
but my claustrophobia kicks
in and I reach for my inhaler. Donate
your body to science, the sign
says, but I cannot picture students
the age of my grandchildren gawking
at my skeleton and pointing out
my imperfections. Sleep on it, my sister says.

Always wear clean underpants
in case you get in an accident,
my mother taught me
before we buried her in a pine box
more than two decades ago
so I put on Tide scented bikini panties
before I slip between the sheets just in case
one of the fighter jets careening
overhead crashes and burns on our roof.

From My Grandfather is a Cowboy   

i am riding a dead horse home by jlewis

the horse, of course, doesn't know
that he's dead, he's so conditioned
to keep moving. that rocking, constant
forward gallop is all he knows

he doesn't sleep anymore, or eat
doesn't remember or think about
the last time he stopped for water
for rest. has no idea where he's going

doesn't care. he only knows that his job
was to carry me where i pointed
as fast and as smoothly as possible
no tripping, no trotting, no stopping

given a choice, i'd swap him out
like a pony express mount, leaving
the old and exhausted behind
taking a fresh horse ahead

but there are no choices here
no alternates, no replacements
i feel him fading under the saddle
but he won't give up, won't falter

so because i've forgotten how
to dismount at full speed
and he does not slow down
i am riding a dead horse home