![\"William](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/cody-foto.jpg\")
<\/a>Cody Maher<\/p><\/div>The American expat poet Cody Maher messages that “some years back in a diabolical playful mood” he jotted down a few notes called “The Pallbearers.” “Most of those pallbearers have already bit the dust,” he adds. In a similar mood, I asked my staff of thousands to post the poem, which I like for the grim story it tells and for its mordant humor. <\/p>\n
THE PALLBEARERS<\/em><\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n The pallbearers arrived late — Cody Maher<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The American expat poet Cody Maher jotted down a few notes called “The Pallbearers.” I like for the grim story it tells and for its mordant humor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-literature","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/cody-foto.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-2Te","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIt was uncomfortable to say the least
\nI didn’t like the looks of them from a distance
\nand they looked even worse up close
\nIt looked like they hadn’t been getting much sleep
\nI’m not going to pay for dreamers
\nThey’ve got shoulders don’t they
\nLet them dream as much as they want as long as
\nthey are able to shoulder my burden
\nOne guy had his hair greased back and was wearing
\npointed white shoes
\nAnother guy had one of those collarless jackets on
\nand his hair was all the way down to his ass
\nMaybe he wasn’t a guy
\nAs long as he has shoulders I don’t care what he is
\nOne guy was dressed in a uniform but I couldn’t
\nfigure out which country he’d been fighting for
\nOr was running away from now
\nOne guy had an enlarged pelvic bone and a deformed
\njaw that was sticking into my ribs
\nOne guy had a caved in chest but broad shoulders
\nthat were standing in my way
\nIt looked like there was one man short
\nThese guys looked like they’d been in the business
\na long time
\nI didn’t like the looks of them
\nThe guy with the white shoes looked like he’d seen
\na ghost
\nThe guy with the uniform kept attempting to
\nunfold a flag and couldn’t seem to get it right
\nI thought to myself
\nWhat does a flag have anything to do with what’s going on here
\nThe one that kept sticking to my ribs couldn’t keep
\nhis hands to himself
\nThe broad shouldered guy had weak knees
\nThe one with the pelvic disorder kept scratching his
\ncrotch
\nPallbearers discover they have shoulders at my expense
\nHistory is a fatal blow to the head I thought to myself
\nA mysterious woman behind a veil clutched a handful of dirt
\nI removed the veil and threw it in her face
\nI chased the pallbearers away like flies
\nIt is on mornings like this that I ask myself why I
\nwas born
\nIt is on just such a morning that off in the distance
\nI can see the pallbearers kicking up the dust
\nBlood coming out of their mouths
\nIt must be something they ate the night before.<\/p>\n