[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

Here lies Postmistress Grady
Spinster of this Parish and Lady
of All Above Board.
Returned - unopened to the Lord.

[Dan Halberstein]

Shall I take it that as a class, poets can write endlessly about their own demise, until asked to do so? Or is said exercise something of a ruse, akin to writing "you" when one means "I," and "they" when one means "you," a faux fear of eternity affected for the purpose of urging better enjoyment of the present? Do we mean to say that here we have this great mass of collected poets -- and of the stodgy, death-embracing formalist variety, no less -- without one thought to our own epitaphs among us, this particularly self-indulgent scribbler excepted?

Eh well. Live and learn, die and forget it all

D

[Dan Halberstein]

(Well, with just a few anyway, certainly outnumbered by epitaphs we have read or heard of rather than written...)

[Michael Cantor]

Here we go - four pages of them from a 2007 thread (and a surprising number are personal epitaphs -even facing death, we appear to be obsessed with ourselves.)

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showth...hlight=epitaph

[Dan Halberstein]

Originally Posted by Michael Cantor

Here we go - four pages of them from a 2007 thread (and a surprising number are personal epitaphs -even facing death, we appear to be obsessed with ourselves.)

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showth...hlight=epitaph

Here lies this thread,
as Michael stated;
Though thought quite dead,
Reincarnated.

[Dan Halberstein]

Here lies poor William Spooner,
Whose quirks ye long forgave;
The grass is always greener,
On the other side of the grave.

[Roger Slater]

Thanks for the link to the earlier thread, Michael. There are a couple of mine I have no recollection writing. You could have posted them here and I wouldn't have known they were mine. Weird.

[Marion Shore]

Originally Posted by Michael Cantor

Here we go - four pages of them from a 2007 thread (and a surprising number are personal epitaphs -even facing death, we appear to be obsessed with ourselves.)

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showth...hlight=epitaph

Behold this decomposing verse
torn from its archived plot--
Perhaps we would be none the worse
had it been left to rot.



Uh oh. Here we go again!


Here lies an aging Boomer;
his ponytail was grey.
He warned his kids against the things
he once did every day.

And though he drove a Beemer,
we trust he rose on high
in a painted Bug to that
soul picnic in the sky.

[Mike Todd]

Here I Lie

But don't be fooled. I wrote this miles away
In a beer garden on a sunny day,

Inspired by a most healthy sense of self.
When I got home, I put it on the shelf.

[Roger Slater]

If some day it comes to pass
you happen to exhume me,
would it be too much to ask
my next grave be more roomy?