I can’t think of anything worse to find on a gravestone
than the words, born, died, and nothing in between,
save two dates and the inscription dearly departed…
…is that truly all that is left behind once life leaves
the departed behind.
If I stand before my gravestone now, a mean feat and fate indeed
as I would like to think I would go out fighting a bear somewhere
in the Canadian outback, armed only with a blunt potato peeler,
an old yellowed and damp from the abundance of snow that
has seeped into the ink, making it blur, fade and disintergrate, copy
of the 2000th anniversary issue of The Beano and with an itchy nose
irritating me. The bear and I
squaring off against each other, my potato peeler
glistening in the rising sun peeking over the tops
of many a snow covered branch, the bear, paws bigger than my head, perhaps armed
with teeth bigger than my feet and who with one swift movement
could send me hurtling through the sky and landing with a thump and crash
headlong into my log cabin that I hadn’t quite finished building yet;
If I could see my grave it better not say in moss covered writing etched into the stone,
He was bored to death.
If I could stand in the spot where my ashes are scattered, I hope
that the view is something awe-inspiring, like being on the goal line
at Eastlands, front row seats every time, or being placed next to the button
that sees the end arrive all too quickly or even staring lost in thought
as an egg timer but used for someone else’s proof that they can
last longer than three minutes in an argument with their lover…
it better not be on the shelf that at this moment in time has the relics
of many a strange brew, several drumsticks and a stone
from Egypt with the felt tip pen written date, 2010, stamped and labelled,
there had better be no date on my place on the shelf.
Bored to death,
surely better to amused all the way to the end,
kicking and screaming and sharpening the potato peeler,
the words of Dylan Thomas haunting your last moments,
Do not go gentle into that good night…
Do not go into the belly of the bear…
at least not without a copy of The Beano and the will to fight.
Ian D. Hall