There will be exactly two schools of thought about this poem:
The Funeral Director
by Jerry J. Brown
Listens, hears and understands…
Communicates softly, a tear, a touch, a smile…
Senses the shock and knows the numbness of disbelief and denial…
Understands the intimacy of death, and quietly
responds to each mood and moment…
Knows the many faces of grief and helps
family members understand them…
Walks with families through the corridors of
confusion and despair onto the pathway of
acceptance and serenity…
And through education, experience and
personal compassion, is the most
dedicated to helping people during
this time of pain and sorrow.
Thus, with gentle strength and deep sensitivity
the Funeral Director serves our society.
Is Jerry J Brown a funeral director by any chance?
Don’t know, Kingfisher. He may be going out with one, he may have been hired. He may even have written this because his Muse moved him so to do. There’s no accounting for poets.
Very well said. You can help people with your knowledge. Sometime it is enough to put someone back on track.
I think I may well be entertaining both of your schools of thought!
Oh the temptation to write a poem about the reality of being a funeral director (Can’t bring myself to capitalise those two letters..)- time for a competition at GFG Batesville Tower maybe?
Okay, Fran, how’s this? –
I’m tired of being a funeral director,
purveyor of coffins and corpse injector.
To comfort the mourning with words sweet and saccharine;
if only they knew what I give them – it’s knackerin’!
It’s a vast improvement, Jonathan, and I think you touchingly evoke the nobility of a funeral director’s calling. One quibble: you have yet to master completely arbitrary line breaks. Oh go on, another: you have employed craft skills like rhyme and rhythm. They detract from the bathos you are striving for – yet attain it, too, for all that, I must admit it…
Yeah, well, you understand Mr Words…l I dunno…
I was only a brickie, a Mr So-and-So,
and you see, they didn’t teach us poems on site,
only ragging up quoins, running blocks in and shite,
so arterial line brakes and rithom and rime
will jall ust have to wait a wyle for some other time
cozz the bathos I’m striving at may get detracted
but that’s cozz I’m not on the books, just sub-contracted.
B. Rick Layer
Give that man a laureate!!