R.M. ENGELHARDT

So when the day finally comes

I will probably have already

Checked out of the room,

Tired, so tired after years of words

And poems and voices and far too

Old to care anymore

About the nightly news.

And yet?

From somewhere six

Feet underground I will still be able to

Hear the wind, and like a flower

My body or what’s

Left of it will briefly rise and stir

As if in interest of even more of history’s

Passing events, and I, being merely a corpse

Will concede to write in the remaining fragments of

My mind and soul

A poem, and this poem

Will be my best poem

Heard by no one but my friends

Like Mrs. Applebee, who is in the lot

Next to me, who in life hated poetry

And who died at 83, or by the young

And newly dead Mr. Hastings who

Was is in love with Penelope and who was

In love with catastrophe and who dared

The poor young Mr. Hastings to

Have some quick sex sitting upon

Her balcony just outside

Her window ledge

Oh.

So Yes

Sorry, I’m still here

Ever so briefly.

As it seems that

Life is always presenting us

With it’s own stories

Of death and romance

Honor and bravery

And love and war

And in this epic poem from

The great beyond I shall go on

To tell all of you, dear humanity about

How cold the earth can be and

How comic and how tragic it all is in the end

To finally realize what all the final answers

Are to the universe and what all the how’s & all

The why’s and etc.(s) mean and to be able to

Tell no one.

Note:

So OK,

Doug was right

(The Answer? It’s 42)

But please wait, please listen

For I am now merely a voice

Upon the wind and

I’m forgetting something important

As my dead memory is

Fading, the poem in my head,

My soul slowly decomposing

And the world, planet earth

Is finally ending and turning into

Just fire and ashes from above

So I’ll recite it

As quickly as I can

Here’s the poem

The last poem

And it goes something

Like this :

So here’s the poem

The last poem

And it goes something

Like this

So here’s the poem

The last poem

And it goes something

Like this

So here’s the poem

The last poem

And it goes something

Like this

Like this

Like this

Like … This:

It’s … This.

Don’t worry.

Stop worrying

And live

Because everything

Is beautiful

And the poem

The story,

Repeats

Everything is beautiful

And the poem,

The story repeats

Everything is beautiful

Everything is beautiful

Every … Thing    is,

Every … Thing  is   is   is   is

IS

“Beautiful”

“Beautiful”

“Beau…tif…ful”

_____________

R.M. ENGELHARDT