in lieu of donations
to a scholarship bearing
the cold echo of my name,
send all the riotous flowers
from around this glorious globe
to my funeral.
send all the barrels
of whiskey and bourbon
and scotch, too. hell, spirit
whatever spirits you want
in my dead direction.
haul in cords and cords
of dry firewood
—perhaps some birch and oak
and sweet, sweet piñon—
build that funeral pyre high,
and for the sake of all things holy,
bring all the fiery poems
meant to ignite human hearts
and sing them to the sky.
how else to celebrate
the brevity of the body,
the bloom and fade
of us all? how else
to celebrate a life
but with the spoken
flower of words?
