A wake can be a happy feast, <br />it honours lastly the deceased. <br />What he did not achieve in life <br />through constant work and frequent strife, <br />is heaped upon him now in praise <br />with drippings of straight mayonnaise. <br /> <br />They have assembled in full force <br />and food is plentiful, of course, <br />all those tuxedoes are expanding <br />like mallard ducks, all set for landing. <br />Some land, indeed on their protrusions <br />the clear result of large transfusions; <br />he would have liked it, what's his name(?) <br />to be among us, play a game <br />and stuff that caviar inside <br />a wake is, somehow... bona fide, <br />such happy faces, thoughts go deeper, <br />another victim of the Reaper <br />has taken one among their midst <br />one must be glad to say 'thou didst', <br />this time the knife took your close neighbour, <br />a man who always voted Labor, <br />some say he was a communist <br />a secret member on a list. <br />But, never mind, all the survivors, <br />are now united as connivers, <br />their eyes must wander through the room <br />to guess a target for the doom <br />that will befall, do mark my words, <br />the one or other of the nerds. <br />Meanwhile, the party's truly swinging <br />the priest is snookered, loudly singing, <br />the local doc who found it boring <br />stretched on the couch and slightly snoring... <br />At dawn, an icy wind sweeps through <br />a whisper urges, 'it is you', <br />It won't be long now, time does fly, <br />before you say your last good-bye.<br /><br />Herbert Nehrlich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/henner-s-wake/
