Weeping Willows We laid him to rest on a Sunday afternoon. He had left a note with some final requests In his mind, of course, they were demands But dead men don't make demands except through lawyers and he'd as soon spit in his hand as entrust a lawyer with anything Funerals, mom had said, are for the living So she gave up as much as she could For what he had wanted And took as much as she had to have He was forty-three at the time of his demise And going on sixty He liked to say that lifting weights was fine But when you're the rod and life's the weights Well, it does bear down upon you His final statement was simple enough Burn me to ashes and don't spend anymore on my going Than you have to 'Cause I won't be there Just exactly where I'll be I don't know anymore than you Though you think you do Perhaps I'll be the wind weeping in the willows For god's sake, no chanting Or saying of things over me that aren't really true He said he would've asked mom To take that Carribean cruise She'd always talked about taking And to scatter his ashes over the ocean But, knowing her, she'd never be able to eat fish again Afraid that some big tuna, caught off the coast of Australia Had, in its journeying, inhaled a part and particle of her very own He couldn't take that from her, she being partial to tuna salad and all I'm too tired to decide what you should do with me He had said I was trouble enough while I was breathing He wasn't right about much in his life, I'll have to say But he was right about all the trouble he put Mom through Strange, too, since he showed so much promise in the early days Smart as a whip, he sure was--worked his way through two years of college And by god got paid to go the last two on a scholastic scholarship He was my brother and we loved each other and we hated each other But what I like to remember are the nights we chilled out with some beers And talked philosophy Just regular what's-this-life-all-about bullshit Thing is, he was always a little too quiet You never could put your finger on it But it just seemed like he was strung too tight He liked things to be black and white in this world But the world kept showing up shades of grey upon more shades of grey Until all he saw Was blackness And no white to lighten it anywhere I think that's why he did it He did himself, you know, with a bottle of sleeping pills Got all cleaned up, trimmed his hair and beard That had gone shaggy during the dark days As he called them To blow his head off or cut his wrists and make a bloody mess Just didn't seem right Someone, after all, would have to clean up after him After the mess that was his life And that someone would be our mom An angel of mercy Who had welcomed him home after years abroad When the darkness began to settle around him Though he still struggled to see the purpose for it all To me it's easy Pick your foot up, put it back down,one step at a time But I know he saw me as a plodder Content to work for the weekend like the rest of the herd He had layer upon layer of meaning and submeaning Thesis/antithesis crap scrambling his brain Something inside him just wouldn't let him relax and go with the flow Life is one hell of a conundrum, I do believe Simple enough to start from the most basic of building materials And yet strangely complex in the building Then comes man with mind and imagination, a shield and a weapon Is it bad genes when man turns his own weapons on himself Or, who knows, good luck 'cause the place or state of being Being traversed to is something wonderful I sure wish I knew Even if I knew it was something good, though I'd have to stay and play out my hand until I went broke Whatever this life lacks in certainty I still feel comfortable with it Like fishin' on a Sunday afternoon and wonderin' where all the fish are hidin' And if life gets vicious sometimes, so what Fight back when you can Run and duck for cover mostly And you'll make it Cuts and bruises heal, and hell Everyone takes a lickin' sometime or other Old man Time keeps on tickin' And gives everyone a lickin' But he had to go And at least he got to pick the time and the place and the way And I wish him to be a hearty gust of wind on those willows weeping Randy Guess ©1997-2001 [About The Poet]     [How Could I Ask For More?] [A Sweeter Dragon Flame]     [The Devil and the Fourth of July] [Wrestling Hemingway]     [Wiggleworm]     [Short-Timer]     [Song of Extancy] [A Silent Paean]     [When Leaves Fall]     [Bipolarity]     [Weeping Willows] [Rainbow Color Reality]     [Hear The Mountains Calling]     [A Matter of Time] [Fair and Moldy Muse]     [Ode to a Scottish Lass] [In Praise of Earth and Sky and Sea] [Understanding Anne Sexton] [Home]    [What's New] [Short Stories]    [Philosophy]    [Forums] [Webrings]    [Biographies]    [Site Index]    [Contact] [Extras]    [Links]    [Copyright] <top>