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Posted

There will be Time to Mourn After the Party’s Done

 

 

Entranced by our Shadows

ever-turning trying to catch

The Source flickering bright

 

Illuminating yellow daisies

a shaft of clear light amid white blossoms

audible puzzle of carpenter bees guarding

doors with their bravado and false menace

 

How absurd he says

to think the Heavens are bound

by the arc of brow and skull

 

When the Work is over

let us rest with celebration

 

Amrita drunk

from a venerable

ancestor cup

laudable and agreeable

as anything fully done

 

Let no-one compose epitaphs

we remain unnamed seekers

 

The party in the tomb should

burst forth with fire and fury

laughter and abundance

 

Mourners dancing naked at their discretion

succumbing to flirtation giving voice

to primal Denial screaming

Yes and again Yes

 

Let them Wake astonished to be alive

 

Let the busy party of rot and rebirth

riot in its quiet harmonious pandemonium

and ignore the well used corpses

 

Building instead a funeral pyre

For All Regrets and sing drunken songs

by the crackling darkness blending fire

and deny by example original sins

 

 

Amen.

Gatekeeper
Posted

Hear - Hear!

Order me up an Irish Wake when I'm gone!

Recalls the tales told by my grandfather of the traditional Irish Wakes of his salad days - of Irish whiskey and good cheer.

Would that I still had the Irish family to roll it out . . .

Thanks for the poem.

from the black desert

Posted

LOL, I shouldn't love this but I do. Everyone should let it all loose at sometime without fear or guilt... and that is the feeling I get from this poem. And yet there is this little part of me, I'm sure from my childhood that is wary of the fight to start, the blood to flow once the revelry takes control. But it is fun until then.

 

~~Tink

~~ © ~~ Poems by Judi Van Gorder ~~

For permission to use this work you can write to Tinker1111@icloud.com

Posted

Thanks Gate & Tink!

 

Tinker, I appreciate your feelings, but there is something to the dionysian element as it is held, pure and unreflective without the apollonian criticism. Its a delicate balance, I know.

 

This started as a reflection on my own funeral, Wishing I could assure that people could mourn later and just be consumed by the celebration of my lie rather than its end. It came up after my partner said something to her daughter about how allot of people want to remember people as they were rather than @ the end consumed (as in the case of their grandfather) by sickness and I thought what a shame we don't celebrate the impact of the life no matter how brief or how long but focus so much energy on the loss and the transitory suffering... To celebrate it deeply shadows and all;-) As an exercise in that it seems to hae worked- Would love someone to read this at my funeral;-)

Posted

How absurd he says

to think the Heavens are bound

 

Brilliant.

 

The party in the tomb

 

For some reason I immediately heard ZZ Topp's "Party on the Patio" in my head. :)

 

And great discussion on Dionysian vs. Apollonian. Sweet!

moonqueen
Posted

I've been back to read this a couple times. My family is not prone to wakes, but until the 70's, they would pair up and someone would remain with the body, at all times until burial. Old customs, odd. I am not much of a mourner, I guess, I cry and move on, as we weep for ourselves, our own loss, not he/she who has passed.

 

Nice work.

 

mq

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

I read this with great interest having recently lost a dear friend.

Following a crowded yet unpretentious cremation ceremony: scores of mourners adjourned to the rugby club wake; where they polarized into five separate groups . Each oblivious of the others existence until that particular day. And I smiled at my deceased friend's ability to compartmentalize her life and remain so well loved and respected.

 

"How absurd he says

to think the Heavens are bound

by the arc of brow and skull.”

 

Brilliant work!

Posted

Benjamin, Moonqueen, Doc- So many thanks for taking the time to red and contemplte- I'm glad it resonated in a 'good' way;-)

 

Juris

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