CRYPTIC MUSINGS
Without breath.
Cold as death.
Nothing here
No hate or fear
I lie here now, still and unblinking
With naught to do but to be thinking
What dead men do with eternity?
You cannot feel. Your mind is free.
Some weep.
Most sleep.
I sing a song
Now I�m gone.
Crypt is dark
Grave is stark.
This mausoleum holds the horde
Of earthly wealth that I have stored.
Pointless, perhaps, but nice to keep
During my embalmed eternal sleep.
Another thought arises, none too new:
Who said you can�t take it with you?
There�s many other corpses in this dark and dismal tomb, who said that they have grudges �gainst their lot
Too many in the graveyard never saw their death a-loom, as several of them fell, were drowned, or shot.
When a man is kept in a sorrowful crypt, when death has come and life is done, you�ve nothing left to do
For unbenknownst to the living hosts, the case of zombies- well, of most- is your mind dies not with you.
I lie in my tomb, in this gloomy room, listen to the others wail of their doom, and I wonder: what�s so bad?
It�s not often you get a good room to let, especially in a plot five blocks from the Met. It�s a graveyard?
Still not bad. Boohoo, they say. I�m dead. I�ve paid. I�m damned. I�m trapped. But I�m not mad.
And they cry. Pipe down, I say. You�re dead? You�ve paid? Oh, damn it all! Shut up! Still they sigh. Me, I think. Sure, I�m dead, with the worms in my head. But I�ve finally got quiet. Just lie and think.
Peace at last. When alive, I never had a time to my self. Privacy? Never did spy it. Going nowhere fast.
Suicidal girls. They�re disappointed, �cause they�re dead and still depressed now. Would�a made me hurl.
I like it here. I died real quick, no pain, no hurt- something I can confess now. Less angst, no fear.
Coffin�s cold. The man next door was a tax-collector, killed by an auditee Bad. He wasn�t old.
Tax not paid. I guess the IRS didn�t know that a forty-four magnum had he. Shouldn�t�ve stayed.
Family visits. Not mine, of course; the whole crew�s gone for a year or more. Mourn for the spirits.
Crypt is nice. Though the velvet cover�s peeling and growing some kind of spore. Cheap at the price.
Whining again. There�s a group in the next mausoleum who bemoans their fates. �Least nine or ten.
Oh, quiet down! What a bunch of morons! Needless to say, they�re from out of state. Make too much sound.
Yes, I�m dead. But as you�ve seen, I spend eternity- in my grave- in my old way. Using my head.
I think a lot. Thinking and musing, spinning my stories , dreaming all the day. Use what I�ve got.
Solid box. There�s no way I could escape from my concrete-grey tomb Many locks.
So I think. Thoughts�re a wonderful gift when you�re dead. Brightens up the room. Don�t eat or drink.
I curse. I muse on this life after death, while my dead brain whirrs and hums Compose verse.
Maybe talk. The other mummies and zombies about aren�t always in the doldrums. Mouth feels like chalk.
I�ve suffered and died, and my body (once prized) is a lump of slime, but I�ve infinite time to think- and also to learn
So take my words, you human herds, and listen to my lesson- oh, don�t be guessing: there�s no hell in which to burn.
When you�re dead you�re dead, but within your head, your spirit lives on when you have gone. Oh, listen to this too:
If your prize is your mind, then death can be kind. Though I died, thought survived. And you can take with you.