attention everybody at my funeral I am looking at you
from a keyhole in time somewhere way back in the mists of when
I was alive & was probably avoiding most of you because, a., I am a bad friend, and because
b., I crave solitude, but be all that as it may, I can see you,

& I can't help noting that you have ignored my explicit instructions, to wit,
that you play The World, the Flesh, the Devil by In Solitude
when the day to put me in the ground has arrived at last, i.e.,
today. So from my hawk's view of your rebellion against a dead man's wishes,

let me just take one deep breath before I tell you
that I hate you all, however much I may have loved you in life,
which I in fact did; but the World etc is the music I wanted playing
as you lowered me into the earth, and I told you as much,

and if you will not start playing it now—
now, as the coffin that holds me descends on its hydraulic riser—
then I hope, and I pray,
to Satan if necessary,

that my stiff body reanimate suddenly, and punch through the box
Bruce Lee style, if Bruce
had been a more morbid person generally speaking,
and I pray that those of you who believe in the devil

feel great fear as I levitate
and start singing "Serpents are Rising" to you
in a voice intended to strike dread and panic into the hearts
of you gathered here to mourn me:

I, who evidently did not die entirely, but kept some portion of his essence back
in order to let you know how much I loved this record, how quickly it came to mean
quite a great deal to me really,
more than I'd expected a record

of dark melodic metal songs to mean to me
in 2011, when I walked the earth
full of life, smiling, whole, with cares great and small and sweet to have,
my step lightened by rare songs such as these.

do you see the corpse risen before you?
are you having a bad funeral?
did you even bring the damn CD? attention everybody at my funeral:
it's time.