After an old man died…

After an old man died

it wasn’t in any of the newspapers

There was not much noise

neither fanfare, nor cannonade

Everything fell silent, fearing to raise a cry

although larum is heard from afar

Nobody’s home

only a dowager left in tears

She doesn’t have to close the door

from the loud snoring of her husband’s heaves

His chest and mouth are still, immobile

His phone will never ring

His voice will never fill

those walls he built with his own hands

There will be no loudly shut doors

whispers, worrying that someone

might hear somebody’s secrets

shushed in the meantime

between dinner and supper

and then carried over

to breakfast and lunch

as every voice is muted now

An old man died

just bring some flowers to put on a freshly dug grave

The whole town had come to see his last way

They murmur, they talk, they comment on

what kind of man he was

Kind Bacchus in love with his wine

never worrying that it might trigger

its disagreement with his aging body

But who could have foreseen it efficiently?

The whole family is now torn apart

sitting quietly in the dark

trying to solve the puzzle

of his unfinished existence

Plans for the future, a garden, a bed

a television set

vigorously inspected by his wife

and treated like an oracle

forecasting the weather every day

His own car, his fish hooks, his vapes

What will happen to all of this?

His sour food prepared each day

I guess all of this must go astray

or be hidden in the darkest corners of the basement

preserved for another time

But another time will never come

leaving a gloomy trace elsewhere

*

September – November 2021

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Thank you for reading!