Mark Armstrong Illustration Specializing In Content Marketing Advertising Editorial Infographics Animation Videos and Social Media

Something a little different for me. A prose poem originally published in Black Coffee Poetry on Substack, as part of their Gothic Pact collection.

Even The Dead Need a Sympathetic Ear
What good is despair if you can’t share it?Life was pressing down on me
It’ll do that
Even when you’re dead
When you’re on a cruise ship
On the River Styx
Especially when Foghat’s
Playing Slow RideThe dead have feelings, too
Ask anyone who’s been in a coffin
That’s slid down church steps
And T-boned a hearse
Dropped by a pallbearer
Who ate a donut
And forgot to wash his hands

(Who smirked and laughed about it later
May his greasy bones be charred in the fires of Gehenna)

I needed to talk
To someone who’d understand
Another rotting corpse who knew the oppressive weight
Of rocks and dirt
Whose heart
(Now reduced to gristle)
Was still in the right place
And (according to GPS)
Several cruise ships
Ahead of mine

I called him on my iPhone
I was buried with it, as was he with his
(All praise and honor to Mort Rigor and
His Deathly Grip)
We brooded and we stewed
In the same old rancid juice
It was almost
Like being
Alive

He said his cruise ship
Had KC and the Sunshine Band
Death, it appears,
Is tough all over

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About Mark: I’m an illustrator specializing in humor, branding, social media, and content marketing. My images are different, like your brand needs to be.

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