You see only a very dead man

Just a clammy lifeless corpse

Perhaps decomposing badly

To return home to Mother Nature

But I see in him a devoted son,

A dear brother, loving husband

We’re definitely different, ‘coz

I work for the rights of the dead

You claim he had given it all up

Absconding from his life duties

Now lying on a cold marble slab

Body broken up in your eyes

But his scars confides to me

He went not of his own volition

His sad face tells a story, ‘coz

I work for the rights of the dead

You avoid touching his cold hands

And cringe at the sight of him

A gruesome inconvenience for you

Just another statistic to file away

However I sense an essence in him

The love of a man, the joyful pride

Of a father to be, I know these ‘coz

I work for the rights of the dead

His opaque glassy eyes terrify you

You look over your shoulders

At midnight you cower in groups

Fearing the ghost from your guilt

I feel his body and he whispers

To me pleas to tell the whole truth

Of his life stolen away, I will ‘coz

I work for the rights of the dead

Dedicated to Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand.