Why We Must Stay Dead After We Die Poem by Alexandre Nodopaka

It is Lizard-Man, a Mewok Indian from the San Francisco
Bay Peninsula who said it must be so because the dead smell bad
and the Coyote-Man proved it according to the Ancient Myths
of the First people.


(There's got to be The First before The Second and The Last)


During a general Powwow gathering of the Great Chieftains,
the MeadowsLark-Man, the Chief of Chiefs, agreed to the ancient
time-beyond-time covenant with LittleLizard-Man about the odor problem
The only one that didn't agree was BlackLizard-Man.


(Looks like they had skin color discrimination then also)


Since this is an Indian tale it involves an Indian Princess,
the daughter of the GreatGreat Chief, LizardFiveFingers-Man.
BlackLizard-Man, having disagreed, collected a distinctive branch
from a magical tree and laid it across a well-known lovers trail.


(Always these illicit footpaths leading to secretive bushes)


Overnight the twig turned into a rattlesnake that bit the young woman
that evening. When found on the 4th day and brought to her father
she smelled bad by no fault of her own but solely because of
that 4th day agreement and not because she wore no deodorant.


(That is way before the advent of Pale Faces)


stipulating that no dead person can be brought to life after
they have been dead for 4 consecutive moons. That is why
to this day people who die, stay dead never coming back.
Because if they did, the bad smell would kill the Last People.


(Narcissism, the me-first philosophy, was alive and well then also)

Last People are the people that would come after the First people
as goes the Ancient Myths of the Ancient First People who,
by the way, were born without hands until the Lizard people came
which explains why we greet Friendly People with a High-Five.


(Indian ways of telling down-to-earth stories are always simplified)