Eulogy to a Newspaper Columnist

Death blots his intuitive channels,

yet one universal sentence remains

etched on his pale, drawn face

stencilled on his, peaked forehead;

"Organic substances are the provender

of Mother Earth"

 

But beneath its dark veil

Death grants a temporal stime

of the animated shadow

that hovered in its mortal prime

 

A columnist by trade

dressed in the trappings of his grade.

A tweed suit of solemn gray

A flossy, red bow tie,

and black trousers graced

with tidy cuffs

 

On his face dated lines,

not only mortality's sign,

but spent words pressed and signed.

In his ridged forehead, columns stitched

baring the strains of stretched skin,

alternately, the pillars of ink

stamped on shards of pulp

 

Hands not soiled by the earth,

nor grizzled by heavy machines;

genteel covers, with creased palms

sharing the tireless words

that flowed from sentient mind

 

 

Through narrow locks of bone and skin,

streams of ink poured over chalky sediments,

then congealed on the cutting floor;

the bottom line rising to the surface

 

Now posterity sinks into perpetuity

to be tapped not by contemporary scribes

who fork off, building virgin channels,

but by itinerant sailors-historians, scholars

dipping their oars into deep, murky waters,

as sponges, dredging, then soaking in spent lines

expunging the moss-covered, cankered strands

their own, glossy portfolios to expand

 

So lies a lifeless pantomime,

words enfolded into Legacy's twine,

indexed not to society's prime interest rate,

amortized and sealed in Time's dark vault.

As his words stagnate in dingy, archive dungeon,

his languid corpse decays in subterranean prison