Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem about a life event (birth, wedding, funeral, graduation, etc.), and (2) take an existing poem and rewrite its "opposite". I used W.H. Auden's "Funeral Blues" to describe a funeral that might actually make folks happy (think Wizard of Oz):
The Wicked Witch’s Funeral
Rewind the clocks, turn on the phone,
Make the dog bark by removing his bone,
Pound the pianos and bang on the drum,
Hang decorations, let the partyers come.
Let the jet planes scream and streak overhead,
Spreading the message, “Thank God she is dead.”
Put bright red bows round the necks of the doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear sparkly white gloves.
She was our cracked compass, our famines and wars,
Our workplace layoffs and our hard Sunday chores,
Our dark noon, bright midnight, dead silence and noise,
We’d hate her forever, but now sorrows are joys.
We want the stars back, put them up in the sky,
Unpack the moon and hang the sun high,
Refill the ocean and replant the wood,
Everything in the world now just looks so darned good.
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