Discussion: Funeral Readings

[colicolo]

Hi Peoples,

I recently read some poems that I enjoyed and that passionatly stoked me that I decided that I want them to be read at my funeral.

Hence the following topic for discussion:

Have you ever written a piece for a funeral?

What piece would you like to have read at your funeral? *touch wood*

One of my all time favourites would have to be:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

It may seem a little arogant, but I really love the third verse and actually based another poem I wrote on this piece.

 

[katmeow]

^ That piece depresses me so much and it also makes me think of how much I cried during that scene in Four Weddings and Funeral.

I spoke at my mum's funeral. Not poetry though, just a little bit abour her life and what she meant to me. I tend to prefer more personal things like that at funerals, rather than something written by someone unrelated. I finished with this:

In the daytime we cannot see the stars, yet we know they exist.
In the night time we cannot see the sun yet we know it exists.
When we are apart you cannot see my love, yet it too exists, ALWAYS

Not sure where it came from... a friend sent it to me years before and it always stuck with me.