Category Archives: Death

Necropolis [Free Verse]

Posted on by
Reply 
a city of the dead
tunneled under the living,

awaiting the flip,
a shift in who's who

-the living & the dead,
-the dead & the living
-the alive and the existent
-the living dead &
those dying alive

all jumbled together
in a sea of inhumanity,
tumbling past each other,

scrambling for humanity -
for the breath of life,
for life in a breath

the musty scent of decay
in the living city
was the first sign...

those in the necropolis 
smelled flowery scents --
clean and bright --
and found those fragrant
perfumes
as revolting as the
living found the rot stench

in the brief time it took
to become acclimated to the stink,
all found themselves in the churn,
struggling for more
of something they
didn't understand

Graveyard [Haiku]

Posted on by
Reply 
snow accrues
on a marble headstone -
silently

Fungi Mind [Free Verse]

Posted on by
Reply 
From its perspective,
we live in a vacant
 upside down underworld.

It can't understand 
our terror over death
and our obsession
with life. 

Just thinking about it
gives it nightmares,
heebie-jeebies
of being overrun
by endless piles
of creatures --
endless piles
with endless needs.

We may wrinkle a nose
in disgust at its worldview,
but it finds ours
positively suffocating.

But it forgives us
our simple ways,
we are just its food,
after all.

POEM: Recyclable Me

Posted on by
2 
In death, I'm a recyclable,
my gut biome will gnaw its way
out of me like Ripley's Alien -
if on a microscopic scale.

Agents of the Destroyer will
turn my tissues into food bits
to feed some other animal.
Yes, I am inescapably 
animal - inescapably 
in transformation from living
to not...

This may seem morose, but is it?
He who can imagine a dog
cracking open his bones to eat
away all the marrow --
without an inner cringe, or wince --
is a person who knows freedom.

Sky Burial [Tanka]

Posted on by
1 
circling raptors
sweep down onto the platform;
they peck and tear;
when sun-bleached bones remain,
nature's hard work begins

POEM: We Are The Dead

Posted on by
4 
There are those who hold marked places,
and those whose place is in the sky.
Most have long forgotten faces,
and a few never said goodbye.

There are those who rose in thick smoke,
from fires whose flames were fanned by hand
and cautiously, carefully stoked
while, to the last coal, they were manned.

There are those whose stones grew mossy -
keepers now buried at their side.
And those with headstones so glossy
who've only just finished their ride.

And all will vanish in due time,
there's only the fortunes to say
whose tales will be told at bedtimes,
and who will vanish to smoke gray.

POEM: Funeral Suit

Posted on by
4

Worn one more time than the number of funerals you attend,
that black suit hangs forgotten — yet dreaded.

It hangs dusty in a closet,
or musty in a bag;
and you’re most listless when it has
a crisp dry cleaning tag.

In good years, it never crosses your path — or your mind.
In bad years, it’s needed repeatedly.

There will be a year in which someone will pull it out for you —
carefully smoothing its lapels —
the year you move beyond bad years.

POEM: Wandering Off to Die

Posted on by
2

And when the darkness looms
we wander on our way
deep into the forest
and from the path we stray.

A lonely way to go?
I’m not sure I agree.
No lonelier than a bed
far from the nearest tree.

Not blocked from the agents
of Death or of Decay —
perhaps, we feel the Web
more than the fear of prey

as we stagger that last mile.

POEM: Saved by the Breath [a Rondeau]

Posted on by
3

My mind curls up into a Breath
to wait out wild and weary thoughts
about who catches and who’s caught
and what is scarier than Death.

A toothless youth whacked-out on Meth —
all roads to hope come but to naught.
My mind curls up into a Breath
to wait out wild and weary thoughts
of men who went the way, Macbeth —
costly made, and yet cheaply bought —
iron-forged, but ambition wrought —
a shapeless agony of Death.

My mind curls up into a Breath.

POEM: Buzz – Buzz

Posted on by
3

If the buzzing of flies
at the moment one dies
drowns out the wailing cries,

one has lived many lies,
twisted the lows and highs,
mistaken what’s a prize,

or, maybe, died too wise.