Without Pomp and Circumstance

Tell them I did not want a church and prayers,
that I believed what a Pulitzer Prize poet once wrote: 
“God knows nothing we don’t know.
We gave Him every word He ever used.”
 
Tell them I did not want a coffin and flowers either—
that rewind of god-awful dreariness and solemnity,
nor did I want collages or a slide show. Instead, 
share a few of my favorite poems  
and play some music, preferably performed,
and have lots of raucous laughter.
 

Let slip that I once kept a childhood charm,
not owing to superstition or religious belief,
but only because the Vatican had 
“Eternally released [Christopher’s] duty and sainthood” 
when they decided
he was more mythology than reality.

Be sure to tell them how much I loved irony.

Tell them moments are what we are,
that “life is but a day”
and to never “miss out on being alive 
in a world where everything is given, 
and nothing [is assured].”
 
But confess to them how I wanted to die
before my wife did, out of fear.
Tell them how I was terrified
of losing a child most of all,
the way some of my dear friends had lost theirs,
and how I worried about the harmful choices
my children sometimes made.
 
Divulge that dementia was in my family too,
if I had lived long enough
like my grandmother and father,
and how frightened I was about erasing
my identity by cyber crooks,
that it’s best to safeguard our money,
as long as “our heart is spent.”
 
Now, tell them how much I loved teaching
and it is through music, poetry
and philosophy…that show us how to be.

Tell them how much I loved to sing
and play Lightfoot and Young… on my guitars, 
and to listen to Chopin, Mozart and Bach, 
and how I loved the blues, and jazz—
when it’s bluesy—and reading  
Dunn, Collier and Djanikian, 
Hume and Camus...

Remind them how much I savored 
my books, handguns, and Lexuses
(as much as I craved dark chocolate)
and saving unsullied money—
things left behind to prove 
this dead collector lived comfortably.
 
And don’t forget to tell them how much
I loved caramel apples and apple fritters…
and, of course, my mother,
but not America’s hegemony, 
bigotry and hypocrisy.
 
Proclaim how much I loved my tabbies too,
my dearest friends and family,
and my beautiful selfless wife, Marilyn—
“Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!”

And that nights filled with stars,
my mother’s Calabrian cooking
and sewing machine’s hum,
my baseball glove’s oily perfume
and the spring’s night air,
bright autumn days, the crow’s cawing,
the wind’s homily swishing through trees,
wind chimes and crunching through leaves
were warm memories of my childhood heart.

At long last, tell them it is old age
who arrives unannounced one day,
emptying its suitcase of inflictions.  
And death is the final costume we will all wear
and “nowhere but where it will occur”
and is not mine to keep,
because it will belong to you someday. 
 
After all, spin a short yarn, 
tell them I said something
unforgettable before I died,
but that you have since forgotten,
though you think I might have whispered
Beethoven’s last words:
“Plaudite, amici, comoedia finita est”—
Applaud, my friends, for the comedy is finally over—
from my other poem about dying
and my wish to leave an éclat to posterity.

Or was it something else I might have said?
A cliché perhaps?
Like everything of value in life
is revealed through what we loved.