Poem Number 22988

Half A Good
Half As Good

When I die they will praise
my super generosity
I once tipped a cute bar woman
One mourner after another
will recall I was very kind
to the down-and-out on their luck
A few times I threw spare quarters
at in-your-face bold pestering
hungry beggars near my favorite
weekend restaurant to impress
and awe my gullible pretty date
Some will even eulogize
what a great contemporary poet
and modern day philosopher
they knew me to be all their lives
Don't contradict any mourners
but I have not published a damn thing
unless you call internet posting
world class publishing of our age
A funeral is a bad place
to shout down well-meanining dark-dressed
grieving people with a rare moist eye
as bold-faced ignorant damn liars
But if I am half as good as
those attending my funeral
will declare one after another
I will likely not turn in my
coffin as they lower me in
my final eternal abode

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Comments welcome. Even bad poets like to think someone reads their stuff ~ Jim
-------
interesting concept, it could use some work though. Not just syntax, but possibly language too.
-o-
-------
Thank you -o- for reading and evaluating the poem. Feel free to redo any line or the whole poem, to give us the benefit of what you have in mind ~ Jim
-------
ooh-ooh. Careful there. Are you sure you're a bad poet? I think not. I think you've got talent. I like the poem. I'm always impressed when someone implies in a poem rather than stating.
Are you young? I guess you are. You'd have probably been hanging around the North Beach gang in S.F. had you been that era.
Never call yourself a bad poet. Never. Let others do it for you, if they must.
My recent experience has been that I love to write poetry. The reactions of my readers are really important but the real thrill is the joy of writing. Plenty will denegrade you or ,worse, ignore you. DOn't do it to yourself. Keep yourself thinking YOU'RE MIGHTY GOOD.
Back to the poem. I a kind of "tongue in cheek" think, how generous YOU threw pittances to the less fortunate. "A quarter, no less."
Because you haven't published, Senor, does not make you any less great. Look at Emily Dickinson.
Good sense of humor.
All in all, you have a pretty good opinion of yourself as a person, if not as a poet, judging from your prediction of people's opinions of you at your future funeral.
As for me, I'll fly away, created over the sea or next to my love wherever he may lie before me. That was dark garbed mourners can't rejoice too much or weep too loudly at my departure.
What is the saying? When I die, half the people at my funeral won't give a damm, one way or the other, and the other half will be glad as hell?"
sg
-------
Good points. Thanks ~ Jim
-------
closed april2