soaking a funeral in vinegar and lemon juice for later consumption

is it wrong to sit at a funeral and write poetry in my head?


jesus called to lazareth
and lazareth came forth

and i; dressed black as death

wondered about decomposition
and whether, if when jesus rose-him
did he de-rot him also

a little defunking of the mandible

a scraping of maggot from scalp
before the grand reentrance


and if he didn't
how was the formerly-dead received at the dinner table

or later in the marital bed





is lazareth really fodder for a new poem?



what is the life span of the no-longer-deceased
a year, maybe two

did jesus in his do-gooder haste
forget the importance of mortality
the relevance of life-cycle

the undoing of done
for the redoing of undone




why was i too fucking lazy to throw the bulbs into the ground before the weather snapped?


hankie in hand
my mind wandered to seasons
and change

it isn't as though i had no warning

leaves change in autumn
the earth cools

marigolds die
and certain flowers, when planted in a timely manner, lie dormant





if infinity stretches forever, why can't i turn my neck far enough to watch it?



i think of my own father
stretched in his casket
and how little i understood then of death and permanence

i watched for him
on sundays

waited for him to sneak in to the choir loft
to bellow the lord's prayer





why is the pear tree the last to turn colors and why is it the most brilliant?




so i learned
at a young age

dead is dead.

but oh!

the curtain call of a pear tree
with all the flame;

its sunlit dance















































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