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Listen to Your Loved Ones Crackle!, a poem by Tim Heerdink


Listen to Your Loved Ones Crackle!
by Tim Heerdink


Oh, what a time we live and die!
Just last morn,
a flash of an article brought strange news
never to be forgotten
as such other atrocities go in history.

Don’t know what to do with your remains?
No need to worry!
Rest forever within the groovy space of vinyl.
For the record,
the sound quality may be horrific,
but that’s all part of the fun.
A teaspoon here,
another touch there,
and now
you’re gold!
What words or music could be important
enough for my ashes to play?
Generations to come will either store the disc
in a basement or attic,
where surely ruin shall follow,
or give it a spin
and complain that an mp3
simply
would be
much better.


Tim Heerdink is the author of Red Flag and Other Poems (Bird Brain Publishing, 2018) and the short story “The Tithing of Man.” He also has poems published in Poetry Quarterly, the Fish Hook, Shared Words, Distinct Voices, The Eye of the Storyteller, and On Earth As It Is in Poetry.