Friday, September 9, 2011

Funeral (A Poem)

Dress me
up in clothes I
never wore, a suit,
tie wrapped tight around
my neck, slacks
and shoes you'll never
see, steps
I'll never take.

Dress me in
peace, no wrinkles
on my brow, no smile, no fear,
no envy or hate - no, dress me
clean, asleep,
dreaming.

Dress me in a life; choose
carefully your words
and thoughts - they are more
than body or deeds
allow; dress me in
your love. I am less

than your me, something
more, a life that words can never
have: wholly
human, divinely flawed, dressed
already, dressed again, buried

already
in skin, love,
soaked in it
all, drowned in it.

Dress me nice and send me
home. They'll know who
I am.

--Matthew Stalbaum, 9/6/11
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I'm not entirely sure about the last stanza (it might be better cut out altogether), but overall I'm pretty happy with this poem. I think the idea's pretty clear when reading it. I've been enjoying this style lately of going through some event piece by piece, from concrete descriptions to increasingly distant and abstract ones. I don't feel like I'm stealing so blatantly from e.e. cummings!

Anyways, this is the last of my 3 poems for posting this week. Next week, if all goes to plan, I'll hopefully have another short story to post up here. Comments are always appreciated, from compliments to criticisms. Thanks for reading, ciao!

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