Thursday, April 18, 2013

Posthumous

Inspired by a prompt from my friend and fellow poet Maureen Aisling Duffy-Boose.




Posthumous

I am increasingly hopeful
... that when I die
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
my relatives will mourn my passing
with deep black and willows,
and at every gathering from now til the
last one standing
will remark, "If only She had lasted just a little longer.
If only we had had her, just one more day."
For on my deathbed I intend to say
- as my last words, with my last gasping wheeze -
"The box where I keep my money is buried...."
and the death rattle will leave them baffled
and yearning
and missing me, wishing me, alive again.
Just long enough to finish....

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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Farewell Maggie (better late than never)

This poem needs no explanation except to say, those who like me remember the devastation wreaked by That Woman on both sides of the Irish sea are glad to see this day.


Farewell Maggie, my old foe.
This day has been long in dawning -
too slow.
I wish you had gone long ago
when we were still young, with ideals still intact
before you broke a generation on your rack
of consumerism and greed.
You were driven by a need I cannot guess
some class hatred / self hatred matrix in your soul
but you squandered the price of many lives
to reach your goal, and threw aside
the hopes and dreams and pride
of both your nation, and mine.
I wish you'd left my country well alone
and done at least as much for your own.

Farewell Maggie. Never has it rung so true;
better late than never, was coined for you.

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