Riding past a Lutheran cemetery yesterday <br />right across the road from a Catholic one, <br />I got to thinking, are they still members there? <br />How about the other sects or heathens <br />Do the dead have to finally make a choice <br />Are there agent saints that force them to be <br />Lutherans or Catholics? Maybe that is how <br />crematoriums get their business— a 3rd way— <br />Picture the signs on the road to the pearly gates: <br /> <br />With wine (tastes great) <br />Without wine (less filling) <br />Fire water/hold the water <br />We only sell the best in promises, <br />no destination guarantees or refunds, <br />decisions of the judge are final. <br /> <br />Kind of like greed in the crap shoot of life <br />Only here when your number comes up someone else wins <br />Grave maker, undertaker, bone shaker <br />Counting on remorse to shame survivors <br />Pay the toll to get past the gate to claim their estate <br /> <br />The dead they got no choice except L, C or O <br />the way it looked to me as a passerby <br />at the cemetery on the road <br />where I rode, <br />opposite the arrows painted on the highway, <br />back to life in a small town <br />where church steeples are the high points <br />behind elevators.<br /><br />Alan Bender<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/click-start-to-logout/
