Let Me Be Dead at My Funeral

Anne-Marie Keppel
1 min readOct 13, 2023

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When I am dead

Honor me with a funeral

Wear macabre gowns

Darkened rags

Sprinkle bread crumbs on my corpse

For the ravens

to cock their heads

No celebration here

Sweep not the fallen leaves

Cheer nothing that looks miserable

Shroud every photo in vignette

Circle red the date

Howl it to the moon

Mope, sloth, slush

If you must set something free

Spare the doves, the balloons

Let it be mice

From their pet store cage

Still the sun beams

Stop the clocks

Break their little arms if you must

For speeding sorrow is not the thing to do

No celebration here

When dawn breaks

And the first grass melts

Melting it’s icy rigor mortis

Let the light crack you a smile

As you imagine where I might first haunt

The clanking pipes

A mirror

A hollow tree

A dreadful fart for the pesky neighbor

That will be something to celebrate

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Anne-Marie Keppel

Author, life-long meditator, intentional healer, weaver of joyful living & mama of three