I Live A Vapor, A Ghost, A Breath Poem by David McLansky

I live a vapor, a ghost, a breath
That nightly rises in the West;
A shimmering smoke, a whiff, a test
Of eyesight weak from lack of rest;
I live beyond my mortal span,
Beyond the rim of mortal man;
My purpose thus to broad survey
My consequence beyond my day;
And at my funeral, o’er my bier,
I hover o’er, I hover near,
The coffin that holds my remains,
My ear attuned to friends refrains;
“I knew him not, ” “I knew him well, ”
How strange the details on which they dwell,
Praised for traits I didn’t have,
Their tears for fears, a balm, a suave;
I swoop, a comet rounding corners
Around the heads of kneeling mourners,
They say their words and stoop to pray,
And rise to carry on their day;
There are chores to do, bills to pay,
Death’s a stop along the way;
How quickly is a soul forgot;
Forgotten while the flesh does rot;
Life goes on with small concerns
Eponyms, food for worms.
Haunted by their separate devils,
They dance and squirm on many levels,
Insisting that there is no death,
Though a voice is gone and has no breath;
There is no pause to long lament,
A voice is gone, a sad event,
But there’s devils dancing in their head;
They claims their due and must be fed;
They sell their house and buy new homes
While I lie molting in fresh loam;
It was my conceit the world would stop,
When I was left to lie and rot;
But, no, the world continued on,
Though I was dead and shortly gone;
Poets still mix metaphors
What they mean I’m still not sure,
While straining for celestial heights
On dark backgrounds lit by night;