Shay in the house at Toads with Fireblossom Friday.
Bang, you’re dead. Maybe that crazy kid driver ran you down, or maybe the aneurysm you didn’t know was in your head exploded. It could have been any of a thousand things, but no matter how you slice it, you won’t be participating in that charity run this afternoon.
Still, this doesn’t have to be the end, despite what you might have heard. Don’t you feel like you still have something to say? Don’t be shy. After all, what can anyone do to you now? Presentation is strictly up to you. Automatic writing, poltergeist activity, dream messages from the great beyond. C’mon, get happy! You’re gonna slay ’em.
So. To whom may I direct your (phantom) call? What do you want, spirit? Time is money, chop chop, let’s go. You’re killing me here. Just write an original NEW poem and sign the linky. It never, uh, expires.
i roll me a slim tube of
tobacco and paper
spark it up and breathe
deep into the void
spill a generous dram of fire
into this bottomless glass
who cares now right?
Uisce Beatha’s irony burns
throw away the cork
night is endless in the
Spirit World
theme park
for the dead drunk.
notes: Uisce Beatha, pronounced “ish-ka-ba-ha”, takes its name from the ancient Gaelic for “water of life”.
The dead drunk! Very clever. I saw a movie once, called “Defending Your Life”, in which people die and in the afterlife they can eat all they want and never get full or gain weight.
I figured if I’m dead I might as well do what I want right? No repercussions, unless of course the Buddhists have it right. 😉
And if the Christians have it right as well. I like the thoughts of doing as we please after we are dead.
I was thinking about Karma 😉 Might be a game changer.
Karma can be a bitch though..as can be hell.
That last stanza cracked me up.
To be forever drunk, must be heaven for some.
I think I have probably spent way too much of my life imbibing…I like that thought of the last cigarette…I am still convinced that hell is a room full of Photocopying machines and endless photocopying….
endless cigarette…endless whisky…definitely not hell 😉
yes but therein lies the rub…could heaven become hell?
only if they ran out of whisky 😉
chortle….
throw away the cork
night is endless in the
Spirit World theme park
for the dead drunk.
This is bang on brilliant!❤️
Thanks Sanaa
I think the torment of death is searching for the ones you love in the vast crowd so taking a bottle with you seems wise.
Heaven would be the quality… hell would be the bargain brand
Very clever write!
…to be there. (a moment?)
I gave up smoking a long time ago, but if you’re dead, it really doesn’t matter! ‘Spirit World theme park for the dead drunk’ made me smile – I’d be sure to meet up with some old acquaintances there..
‘If you are dead it doesn’t matter’ was exactly the point of this little foray and trust me, for a once ‘catholic boy’ this could have been much more depraved 😉 The dead drunk line made me smile when it appeared too.
🙂
I especially love the understated way this is written, in short, sharp and very compelling bursts. I have always hoped to go to the Norse version of heaven, the eternal feast at the mead hall of the valiant,( but I don’t think they have tobacco there-still, OK since I don’t smoke.) I especially like the chill in the final stanza–would even appetite become old in ‘endless night?’
Initially I struggled with the prompt…trying to go all ‘deep and meaningful’ and then it occurred to me that in death there was nothing left to worry about ( or be told I should worry about) so why not kick back with a fine single malt and a smoke that can’t kill you. Of course you cottoned onto the fact that even this could potentially get tedious.
Pour me a Woodford neat, light me a joint .. I’m ready.
Pull up a chair
The dead drunk…Nothing like a joint for the bleak view
Nice Paul, I like the lines, “theme park for the dead drunk.”
Do you remember the CW song, “If there isn’t Mogen David in Heaven I don’t want to go” or so? A 70’s son.
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