And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,
T.S. Eliot, East Coker
Nobody’s funeral, for there is no one to bury.
mr nothing took off his glasses
he liked it that way a bit blurry
when trying to make sense of
the pictures he reached
for de nuptiis the intended
simplicity of thought
bric-a-brac perhaps
he never was a good storyteller
his father mingled clay and drank
his mother bred hydrangeas
and laughed at the butcher
sometimes she just couldn’t cry
like her mother when talked
late at night so no one could hear
it was german after all in such a place
along the way mr nothing grew up
born in despair in the cruellest month
he was supposed to be a figure
of speech a semantic game borrowed
from another language so the other one
the poet could pretend that he no longer
was looking for an embalmer a grammarian
among the tombstones the last to bury
hidden pilcrow 