Jody's Notes
This is an early poem, and so it relies on my earliest strengths: wordplay, puns and imagery. I wasn't fully concerned with sound yet, and so it's somewhat clunky when read aloud.
This was reprinted in The Lust for Blueprints, both editions.
I do not visit graveyards,
for the dead are jealous.
I will be too.
It will start at the wake
when meat slides from my bones like water,
spills upon my mourners like a vengeful dye,
stains their memories forever.
Later, when you think you have the mess
safely buried, the coffin will sweat my flesh
in bright drops; they will congeal at leisure,
visit my friends that evening
and commit unspeakable acts of nostalgia.
The undertaker may cure meat with his chemicals
and some he may can for good.
But, one way or another,
I will be sick forever.
© 1993, 2001 Jody Azzouni