“Let us forget with generosity those who cannot love us”

― Pablo Neruda

In answer to your question I declare
That I must die seems totally bizarre
Yet since you ask  which burial I prefer
Cremation seems to be  the least unfair

I’d like to hear the sound of Joan of Arc
Jennifer and Leonard sing in parts
And as the Maiden burns up in the pyre
I shall be consumed by controlled fire

I’d like to  be more useful while alive
I am not a husband nor a wife
But I might be a friend to those I love
And pray the sun will shine ,below, above

I think I made a Will,but why d’you ask?
Do you think you’ll benefit at last?
I plan to leave it all to Charity
One that gives old folk  meringues for tea.

You never phone without your wise advice
About  how housework should fulfil my life
But my mind  is as good as yours, I find.
I keep it oiled  and covered in red wine.

Joan of Arc will be my friend and saint
September Cohen will become my mate
He’ll sing an anthem while I sail away
And give me courage  when it hurts to pray.

It’s time to laugh and cry over our lives
As to the  young we dictate our archives
Though few people  listen the Word
At least we can assure God  that we have tried

I  wonder why you never rang before
And today I shall be nineteen ninety four
I will ring you when your birthday comes
To ask you if you’d like pickling in rum.

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/making-space-aphorism-exploring-intersection-between-aphorism-and-poetry

¨What drew me to aphorisms was my reading of a new compilation of Kafka’s Zürau Aphorisms, translated by Michael Hofmann. This collection contracts and expands the notion of what an aphorism can be. Some are merely observations: “Like a path in autumn: no sooner is it cleared than it is once again littered with fallen leaves.” Others strike me as snapshots—fragments—of the personal: “To let one’s hate-and disgust-filled head slump onto one’s chest.” And of course, some grapple with such large concepts as Evil, God, Humility, Babel: “Once we have taken evil into ourselves, it no longer insists that we believe in it.” Finally, there are the aphorisms that, rather than delimiting something small, seem capable of offering a Weltanschauung, a world view, as in the justly famous aphorism that ends the Kafka collection:

It isn’t necessary that you leave home. Sit at your
desk and listen.
Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t wait, be still and
alone.
The whole world will offer itself to you to be
unmasked, it can
do no other, it will writhe before you in ecstasy.

This aphorism verges on being a parable: a small story that teaches. It strikes me that this is a self-portrait of the artist as a receptacle of, versus creator of, reality. Or, as the Moody Blues sang aphoristically many years ago, “Thinking is the best way to travel.”