The Queer Ambience Inside The Walls Of Xaverian's Funeral Home Poem by Frank James Ryan Jr...fjr

Every room was painted floral and quiet,
nary a breath of lung friendly air,
every window, ceiling and wall-
dripping of morose as thick as molasses;
pictures on walls smoky, hazed
like neo-noir films from 1912 France.
Odd artifacts shaded by thick yellowed drapes,
producing a sepia twilight,
creating queer silhouettes playing sunset games-
assisted by the catty-cornered torchere lamps,
casting shadows across cathedral ceilings,
some strangely, disturbingly abstract,
pouring into the west end rooms,
like a sea-witch crossing riptide and white-cap.

And, not so far away from all of this,
at the end of a dark, narrow hallway
is a door leaking choked heavy traces
of formaldehyde for a last minute entry,
where a circle of people just outside the door
were whispering in a tone acquiescent to the ambience.

The sound as the light, quite portentous,
as the grandfather clock warply chimes nine times,
the call for the stiff suited men to tend
to escorting the grieving and otherwise folk,
to the double front doors with the Sistine glass,
causing one woman to ask another,
''could this place be any more dour''?

And, they'll all return early tomorrow morning,
dressed in the same suits, and dresses,
faces all wearing their best solemn eyes;
until the east end sunlight breaks the gaunt silence,
its effulgence, a momentary comfort for fragile nerves
a resplendence so reaching, it travels on west the room,
where the departed lay sleeping
in his pinch-cushioned capsule,
still open until Father Quinn
makes the sign of the cross...
blessing mahogany,
while the rest of us go forward once again,
'til its our turn to close our eyes and sleep-
through the warply chimes of the grandfather clock
after spending a night in that room down the hall.

Ashes to ashes...that's how it should be,
cremation is cheaper than mahogany.
And besides, who wants to wear the stench
of formaldehyde to their grave?




FjR-MMXVII