It's All Over

go back in time about three decades or more,

before he was Donnie Haskell, he was singing

about how it’s all over…

 

and exactly between eight dozen and

eight baker’s dozen die per year just

shoveling snow from their driveways…

 

cardiac arrest the day after the snows fell…

 

and he told his daughter and wife to play

that very song at his funeral…

 

and they stared at him like

he lost his damn mind…

 

the attendees would likely find such a

gesture downright offensive and disturbing…

 

but that’s just not his sense of humor,

he really thinks that life isn’t sacred,

that existence itself is an absurd play

conjured up by some weird, sadistic freak…

 

and no matter how one spins it,

positivity is just a myth we spool

out to make ourselves feel better…

 

and the ones that smile and wave,

they know much of what we know

just stands for nothing…

 

but both factions are on the same penny,

it’s just copium combined with seethium…

 

and like cesium, some of us spontaneously

combust when we’re exposed to air…

 

and like the life of Hollis Brown, those that

are snuffed out are inevitably replaced by

new lives that have to search for meaning

just like those that came before…

 

the endless cycle that’s never over

despite what so many storytellers,

songwriters and poets have said before…

 

the Edmund Fitzgerald sank,

Donnie Haskell croaked

(his character did anyway),

grunge went the way of

garage rock,

and the administrations of

Biden and Trudeau have

become historical footnotes…

 

for life itself, it won’t be over

but for the individual it will be,

don’t pretend it’s sacred but

don’t pretend it’s all nihilistic too…

 

get the wins that you can,

and enjoy what’s left after

the celebrations cease raging..

 

even Leonard Peltier

finally earned his pardon…

 

it’s all over indeed