Post-Mortem
Post-Mortem
Original Text
John Robert Colombo, Off Earth: Poems and Effects (Willowdale: Hounslow Press, 1987): 40; and All the Poems of John Robert Colombo (Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2005).
2Thus the Distinguished Author's
3Headline -- and deadline.
4So here he lies --
5Abandoned by his readers,
6Remaindered by his publishers,
7Stung by resentful reviewers,
8Cold-shouldered by hard-headed anthologists,
9Uneasy lies the dead head.
10When asked to comment on his own demise,
11He replied, in measured tones:
12"No one expects the dead
13To have opinions. Or do they?"
14Friends and non-friends alike recalled
15His oft-quoted bon mot:
17A usually reliable source
18Offered a note of caution"
19"Wait and see,
20He's been dead before
21And he'll be dead again."
Notes
1] The title is Latin for "After death." Back to Line
16] Heywood C. Broun (1888-1939) reputedly said: "Posterity is as likely to be wrong as anybody else" (Sitting on the World [1924]). Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2010
Rhyme
Special Copyright
"Post-Mortem" by John Robert Colombo, from <i>All the Poems of John Robert Colombo</i>, copyright 2005 by John Robert Colombo. Reprinted by permission of the author.