Deathmask

A sombre study in an ashen shade of grey

The haunting eyes of the lifeless not yet rotten

Embalming fluid stave off incursive decay

Chemicals course through passages that life has forgotten

Preservatives bubble and fume shades of jaundice and amber

Sequestered alone in my embalming chamber

Unknowing, unseeing, and laid spread-eagle on the slab

A lackluster piece of meat

I polish, scrub, and swab...

Meticulously grooming and brushing, clipping with care

Each detail is attended to as I drag a comb through the hair

I beautify the blemished face of the deceased

In the hopes that the bereaved will be somewhat at peace...

This is my endeavour of dubious merit

My morbid application of sleight of hand

A charlatan for the mourning and timid

A touch up artist for the dead, gone, and bland...

To sanitize the ghastly countenance of death

Whose true rigors are best left unseen

Powders, puffs, and chemicals are all that is left

A corpse made to strut, prance, and preen...

Romanticizing rigor mortis, and death be not vain

Caked with layers of powder, toner, and deceipt

I vomit on the floor at the leering, smiling face

Leaving the deception not yet fully complete...

My make-up kit now callously discarded

No more use for toners, blushes, and rouge

Extracting the tools of dissection

Forceps, scalpels, and pins I eagerly peruse...

A sanguinary frenzy now ensues

Carving, rending, and generally making a mess,

Carbonated embalming fluid foams from vacant eyesockets

Splattering and sullying your sunday best...

Ineptly mangled and randomly remade

Taking a stab at plastic surgery on human remains

Weaving a wretched, fleshy tapestry of gore

A collage of tongue, skin, blood, sinew, and brain...

Your face stricken with total disfiguration

The dignity of death now cruelly erased

Somewhat innappropriately dressed for the somber occasion

No pretense remains as you're sent off to your wake...