by Angela Lansbury
Please don't bury me in a cemetery
Where I'll be stuck for eternity
With words declaiming misery
Sit me in the box of a theatre
Until you can think of something better
A comedy to distract my debtors
When you are sure that I'm deceased
Prop me up at a table watching a feast
Give me bread and water and fruit, at least
I'd like a coffin with a window
Flowers and gold and a silken halo
And a phone in case I don't want to go
Romanian gravestones get biscuits and beer
Write on my headstone, 'Wish you were here'
Like primitives, dig me up a every year
Each year wash me off, provide a new dress*
In Sulawesi they say it saves children distress
So make me and my dead friends all look our best
If you have to pay for a cemetery
To please somebody from the powers that be
Then publish my books of comedy
Because laughter's the best tribute to me.
Angela Lansbury
copyright 2017
Inspired by Wolfe's poem about the burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna in Spain.
Toraja, Sulawesi, Indonesia
*http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2745169/Zombie-chic-Indonesian-village-Toraja-s-bizarre-annual-ritual-Ceremony-Cleaning-Corpses-MaiNene.html
Additions July Wed 26, written at the request of Alison Chisholm, poetry teacher, for performance at the last Summer Writers' Holiday in Fishguard, Wales. (You can still book for a spring weekend, Feb 2018. See www.writersholiday.net.
The Graveyard
by Angela Lansbury
Please
Please don't bury me in a cemetery
Where I'll be stuck for eternity
With words declaiming misery
Sit me in the box of a theatre
Until you can think of something better
A comedy to distract my debtors
When you are sure that I'm deceased
Prop me up at a table watching a feast
Give me bread and water and fruit, at least
I'd like a coffin with a window
Flowers and gold and a silken halo
And a phone in case I don't want to go
Romanian gravestones get biscuits and beer
Write on my headstone, 'Wish you were here'
Like primitives, dig me up a every year
Each year wash me off, provide a new dress*
In Sulawesi they say it saves children distress
So make me and my dead friends all look our best
If you have to pay for a cemetery
To please somebody from the powers that be
Then publish my books of comedy
Because laughter's the best tribute to me.
Angela Lansbury
copyright 2017
Inspired by Wolfe's poem about the burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna in Spain.
Toraja, Sulawesi, Indonesia
*http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2745169/Zombie-chic-Indonesian-village-Toraja-s-bizarre-annual-ritual-Ceremony-Cleaning-Corpses-MaiNene.html
Additions July Wed 26, written at the request of Alison Chisholm, poetry teacher, for performance at the last Summer Writers' Holiday in Fishguard, Wales. (You can still book for a spring weekend, Feb 2018. See www.writersholiday.net.
The Graveyard
by Angela Lansbury
Please
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