Funeral Poem

I hope I die
In the changing room at Primark
Squeezing into a pair of denim shorts
Two sizes too small
Slumped back on the stool
The denim tight around my slackened knees
A style far too young for me
so the shop girl later comments poor dead try hard

Yes, let me die
In a mall in Maidenhead
My colon rammed with lamb jalfrezi
Let it dribble from my arsehole
Down to my metatarsal
And make some cleaner loathe me
When he gets it on his clothing
I hope he slops his mop and curses me for being dead.

So what if I die
On a kids plastic train at Mcdonalds
Sweating, dressed as the Hamburgler
I hope my wheezing and gasping
Gets next door’s children laughing
Let them clap and let them squeal
when I bring the happy meals
Crashing to the bleached floor as I fall

And at my funeral dispense of the eulogies
don’t give me another man’s vision of dignity
I don’t want poets flexing their literary pretensions
Comparing me to a felled redwood or the River Wensum

Just stick me in a deck chair atop my red Escort
dressed in a fishing hat, Bermuda shorts
and a T-shirt with Well Dead and Loving it written on it
have page three girls drape themselves on the bonnet

Forget the meaningful folk songs play Agadoo instead
get the make up girl to draw a penis on my forehead
And in place of a hymn just shout at my corpse
we’re going to Alton Towers and you can’t come because your dead

Shoot down any pomp or significance
Don’t let that get in way of who I really was
Because stencilled wit on a grave stone
Written in pure testosterone
Means nothing if you lived your life like a bastard
Means nothing if you came home every night plastered
Means nothing if you never gave your loved ones what they asked for

So lay me out on a Black and Decker workmate
Intestate,
In Margate,
with a hard drive full of porn
A grin on my lips, my dignity torn
And ask was I any good to you?
Did I really do my best?
Did I really work for you?
I hope the answer’s yes.