Message Received.
On this earthly realm all people come and go,
But masses pray they'll live on with the Lord,
But when and where I'll go? Hell if I know,
Of course my education was fatally flawed.
(Once we've been delivered into this big bad ol' world
We live our best lives until a Heavenly Angel doth appear,
Then Saint Peter's list of all your earthly sins is unfurled
And that- if you do so Believe- is the time all Sinners fear.)
Truly a childhood spent at Catholic school
Is an education a chapruesnever forgets,
Now here I stand, back in the vestibule
Thinking back on a lifetime of regrets.
Dewy-eyedly I come to this funeral this sad day,
Pay my respects to a school pal who's passed on,
It felt odd to be in Saint Egbert's again I must say,
It feels it's been an eternity since last we've gone.
Still, I'm only here to grieve then leave;
This Church still leaves me feeling small,
Man, the grandeur here is hard to believe,
Bloody stained glass windows ten feet tall.
The parish priest parroted his usual departing piece,
(Thank God they don't bury us in Latin any more,)
In olden days I'd felt the services would never cease,
(Lord knows I've heard all this RC rigmarole before.)
Still, it feel it's my duty to be standing here,*
And to give the long-winded priest his due
His eulogy resounded out clear, for all to hear.
(Though not sounding like the sinful lad I knew.)
The farewell service carried on... at a funereal pace...
Call me out for being impatient but this must be said,
My old mate was never one who'd haunted this place,**
Many a time he swore he'd not be seen back here dead.
Still the priest prattled on, unmolested,
An hour in and he'd not yet said his lot!
A Saint would have had his patience tested!
Man of God, lets move ontowith the plot!
Was it the memory of all those dark roomed confessions
That had me wanting to leave my uncomfortable pew?
Even now I blush at the telling of my many transgressions,
And the many more I kept to myself- Hush, if only He knew.
Now don't get me wrong,
I'm sad to see my mate go,
But Lord above, how long
Does it take to say 'cheerio?'
It is stupendous how slowly in church the time passes,
Not helped if the Father has a deep sleepy baritone,
The minutes dragged on, ticking down slow as molasses
As I found when surreptitiously checking on my iPhone.
But mourners, heed my advice,
Ignore it if the hour draws late,
Stay patient and quiet as mice,
Idle hands tend to tempt Fate.
Keep thy hands in prayer mode, not fiddling in coat pocket,
Remember, take time to give the deceased a decent send off,
Fumbling idly with my iPhone I found 'tis possible to unlock it
And a loud ringing cold call is no way to send an old friend off.
* Or in an old school Catholic funeral- standing, sitting, kneeling, gesticulating, stumbling through Latin...it's less sitting quietly through a funeral than going through the full gamut of Catholic calisthenics.
** Truancy took up a fair part of his school year.
'Operator
Give me information,
Information
Give me long distance,
Long distance
Give me heaven...
Operator
Information,
I'd like to speak to a friend of mine.'
Manhatten Transfer, 'Operator.'
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Obbverse 
