Respectfully Absurd

Rituals of remembrance,

so weary, so salty-sweet.

Beside an open grave,

someone says words 

about a dead man whose

corpse lies in a manufactured

box nearby. The memories

of him will never be riper

than they are now. No one

will think to recall him after

a few months, it not days, if

not . . . Even at the moment

how many listeners are 

thinking of other things, 

or wondering what the point

of funeral services is? "Funeral

services" has the ring 

of American assembly lines. 

That's all right. The frail,

exhausted nobility of mournful

practices preserves their worth.

They're respectfully absurd.

hans ostrom 2019

As My Generation Dies

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Generation Blues


Death's eating into my generation
as it's done with every other one.

I knew it was coming but am
transfixed and awfully grieved still.

A heart-attack here, cancer there,
suicide, accidents, crime . . . "He wasn't

feeling well, so he went up to his
room. They found him dead a few

hours later. Stroke, they think."
The funerals mostly bore me.

Boredom makes me feel guilty,
although the one spoken of isn't

there, and if she or he were, he
or she would be bored, too.

Eventually I'm moved. There is
that one point in every funeral.

The generation blues is an exercise
in sitting still, as in kindergarten.

It's about wondering who's next
and thinking nothing matters--

until after the funeral, when again
we get caught up in life, which matters,

until the next one we know dies, and
we become still again, or the next one

is me, is I, who, dead, will get
instantly and forever still and might

be talked about to people who are
getting fidgety, thinking when will it end?


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom