Funeral for A Friend

Open casket cubicles. Common worker. Government servant. Cremated and buried under wraps of white linen and headless chatter of fluorescent gas. Multi-tasked souls ablaze on funeral pyres burning ghostly shards of rising smoke as ode to the poet's last lament. Odious dead to the world. Odious dead to the mother, the father, the brother, the sister, the lovers never loved. Staple! Sort! Stand on one kneed swivel chair! Balance into yourself, into your life! Resurrect your soul--biblical utterances!! Atheistic absolutes!! Government man. Government women. Govern thyself!! Yellow stickies, chapter and verse!! Glue sticks and inkless pens!! Pencils leaden with stories half told!! Open the casket to your heart, douse the funeral pyre with yellow streams of your deepening rage. Yes, release your self! Brown lunch on spotted bananas!! Bling-Bling, Bling-Bling, the hip hopper cries!! Sing-Sing, Sing-Sing, Benny Goodman stares to swinging stands. No, it can't be. Pension checks in checkered suits.

Stiff lives,
formaldehyde and jekyll tides.

The casket closes. The hip hopper dies. Benny Goodman sing-sings to airless men. The chance was yours, government man. The chance was yours, government man. Passed by in purple folder wrapped airless in green string.