Pessimism Act Three

I can’t escape the tasteless fate of others,
so many lumps in so many graveyards.
How easy we fulfill the prophecies of daily terrors,
so many examples of life leading to its death,
whether crippled aunts, careless sons,
the old, the young, the barely born,
enough to terrify me in every direction.
A cough brings on a nightmare.
A pain in the shoulder asks the horrific question,
whose body is this anyway?
And now it’s winter
and the landscape even looks the part
of pallbearer:
cold wash of river’s edge.
forest surrender to the snow,
ice hanging from the eaves,
half-frozen streets,
a gray dispirited sky above,
January daylight as short as breath,
and everywhere chimney smoke,
so each home is a charnel house.
How do you stop the funeral and its followers?
How pointless is the light of my friend’s good cheer.