Six Epitaffies Poems by Ken Gosse

 

Six Epitaffies

 

A Fading Glimmerick

 

From a limerick writer of note,

the very last thing that he wrote

would begin

“Now I write

my obit, rather trite.

I rhymed all my days

and long into the ”

His last words, still an unfinished quote.

 

Quoth the Maven Nevermore

 

His words may never fill a quote

but he stood by each word he wrote

until his final lines were read

at his farewell, when he was dead.

 

 

Breathless in Anticipation

 

For her return

he held his breath.

She chose to wait

until his death.

 

 

Don’t Beat Your Wife!

 

Their argument,

his only win,

meant his wife lost.

A fatal sin!

 

 

Good Riddance

 

She said goodbye forevermore.

“He lays at Rest Beneath this Floor”

inscribed upon the outhouse door.

 

 

A Token Farewell

 

Sweet fragrant grass is now his cloak.

Above his ass below, we toke.

Ken Gosse usually writes short, rhymed verse using whimsy and humour in traditional meters. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, he has also been published by Pure Slush, Home Planet News Online, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and others. Raised in the Chicago, Illinois, suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, for over twenty years, usually with rescue dogs and cats underfoot.