An Afterlife Party

Approaching The Cup

The dead who’ve died in time for tea
at Valhalla, in the nine-world tree, 
raise their spirits in a toast to me
who resurrected bright conversations
(designed to wreck an age’s reservations)
while on Earth, with divine enunciations
of the forgotten gods of land, sky and sea.
And now I watch with an unfaithful glee
all that my after-living eye can see;
the cookies’ evolution into crumbs,
the secretive sips of exotic rums
snuck in in flasks by the bardo bums.
—The scene is set up like a final scene:
a luncheon’s attempt at theodicy—
Still my plan to invade Elysium
is greeted with wary delirium
by the masters and their masters of sorcery;
for purely logistical reasons, you see.
“We want to! we want to! it’s just that…well,
we’re still waging wars on Heaven and Hell.”
So I ensorcell my lips with my favorite spell,
that potent mead wise Wotan acquired,
and politely inform the gods they’re fired.