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Paul Stevens
Paul
Stevens was born in Sheffield, England, but has lived most of his life in Australia. He has had poetry recently in
The Barefoot Muse, WORM, and Lily. He is the founder and Poetry Editor (with Nigel Holt) of
The Shit Creek Review.
Funeral Arrangements.
Stretch said he might have thought he half-remembered
that once Kim said he'd probably prefer
to be cremated. But maybe it was someone else.
Maybe it never happened. Cremation? Burial?
What style of coffin? Brass or turned wood handles?
The plot of earth? The columbarium?
Divide the ashes? Scatter them on the lake?
Where would he like to be? And the order of service?
How shall we feed the mourners afterwards?
Sandwiches? Coffee? Caterers for the event?
We'll meet at Shortie Pub, his watering hole.
Those who knew him will know just where to go
to set a schooner or two floating away
upstream to the source. Beermats, cigarettes.
"What was he like?" the celebrant asks us now;
"What can I say to deliver the man himself?"
His sense of justice. His fierce loyalty.
His humour - how he'd make you sit and listen
to the Goon Show. He's up there laughing now.
Just forty-eight years old. No one expected.
Unexpectedly. Brother of. Uncle to. Mate.
Was he a family man? What he was, was True.
"True" is the word. What was his favourite music?
What songs shall we play? What photo shall we mount?
What poem read? What rhyme or metaphor
to send him on his way, wreathed in our numbness?
A celebration of his life, not sadness.
Whose shoulders will we choose to bear him in?
How place his coffin on the catafalque?
What upbeat music as we walk away?
To end the service, shall we draw the curtain?
Lack
His own choice: darkness as his cliché;
hugs emptiness like a bottle, Old Lack.
Lost his name so we can't ask him how;
forsook his face so he can't smile now, Old Lack.
His choice: his eyes reflect cones of light.
He gulps back black spittle, Old Lack.
Old Lack, fingers the window pane,
Old Lack, warming his hands on ice.
Old Lack, missing a shingle up top;
Old Lack, nothing at all down under.
Don't try to help: his wail rises, soars
across his world of malice, ceaselessly.
Hunched in his poverty hole, he heard me walk,
sensed my casual shadow across him, Old Lack.
Hates my presence so much he loves it;
hates my voice, listens like a devotee;
hates my name so he must mouth it, creeps
up close and close to smell his old breath, Old Lack.
Worries his words, picks them through and through,
searching for just the word to kill me, Old Lack.
Plots my itinerary like a stalker,
hugs my image to him like a lover:
I'm the one he never can get over,
Old Lack, Old Lack, Old Lack.
copyright © Paul Stevens
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