Speak ill of the dead tonight
And I shall have to leave you
For I will not disturb the spirits
Of the Gone, and it seems so silly anyway
To spend an hour with a ghost
When I can, with much less effort
Spend a happier night with you

I know: the rank gray smoke of hypocrisy
Seems to waft up from the warren here
Where the poet used to rummage
Through the dust to find the bloody flakes
Of memories, and where, even now, the
Ancient blade still cuts and bleeds as fresh
As it did in all those cobwebbed yesterdays.

So, yes, there’s a disconnect
And yes, I am only being that madly
Inconsistent man who drove you crazy more
Than once with his wild-eyed
Philosophies and incongruencies.
But, alas, such is humankind, To spout
Against injustice
While being happily unjust
To insist you shred all your memories
Into confetti
While storing high the neatly
Tethered bales I call my own

Being that baldly hypocritical can be disquieting
Still, for all that, they are my memories
They are my guests and I shall
Decide when they shall dine
When they shall sip,
And the time they shall depart
And when the time does truly come to bar the door
You will find, my love, I can exorcise the past
With both fanfare and Finality

07/01/2002

Author's Note: One from the vault.

Posted on 06/22/2015
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch