DEATH
Able to lose three pints of blood
before room temperature,
rolling over yonder,
taking a dirt nap, pushing up the daisies,
passing over, on, away,
stiff and stoned to meet our maker,
we began with a cell
now a multitude of cells,
a species shuffling off our mortal coil,
joining the choir invisible
on that good night of a better place
beyond the promised shore,
that bar of River Styx in Elysian Fields,
paying Charon's fare,
sleeping with the fishes,
we began with a tooth,

 little sparrow-bone,

cut off, defunct, done for,
erased, extinct, inanimate, gone,

 late, liquidated and mortified,
offed, perishing in repose,
rubbed out, snuffed out, wasted,
bumping off, cashing in,
cashing out, dancing our last dance,
eating it, taking it like a man,
crouching toward Bethlehem
on a one-way ticket
from where we began
on the back of a Greyhound
returned to sender,
Adios Park, Corpses-R-Us,
La Chateau Eternity,
Hearse-Pit Stop
in the city of Necropolis
known for farewells and hellos,

minutes of flame with a one-person chamber
where the moon shineth not,
a free feel for all
who dig a done-for-deadbeat,
a clammy Sonata for 1,
a sticky end.
Life’s tough all over.