Tombstone Blues
Send me dead flowers…
He wanted his tombstone
to exhibit just the facts, Ma’am.
No cherubs or platitudes,
meaningless dates or military service.
Only the really important stuff.
Which toenail had the fungus.
His endless dreams of falling.
His penultimate decision about
the imminent existence of God.
How he became a hermit.
Why bourbon was the best medicine.
How, after 66 years, he found a voice.
His two or three best puns.
The virtues of solitude and celibacy.
The best sex he ever had.
Who really killed the Kennedy’s.
How he came to fear cassowaries.
Just the things that really mattered.
The things that actually made a life.
This might require a billboard
intsead of a tombstone.
Little enough to ask for eternity.
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