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