Graveyard Trees [Haiku]

graveyard trees
turn crimson in the Fall, but
hold leaves stubbornly.

Dancing Through the Graveyard [Common Meter]

When you're dancing through the graveyard
you'll get some angry stares.
They'll call you "disrespectful cad"
for failing to show care.

To be carefree won't offend ghosts;
they'll wish they'd done the same.
But mourners act as if, for Death,
you are the one to blame.

Why should one hold the dance within,
when it longs to be out?
Why should expressing such pure glee
be cause to point and shout?

Grave Reviews [Free Verse]

I click on Google Maps;
 a pin highlights for a cemetery,
  and, here, I stumble upon 
   graveyard reviews.

These reviews intrigue me because
 it seems to me that if one is capable 
  of writing a cemetery review,
    then one is unqualified.

And, if one is qualified to comment
 on the caliber of an eternal resting place,
  then one is unlikely to be capable of 
   posting a review.

I read one of the one-star reviews
 and see that the reviewer's principal complaint
 is an overabundance of "pocong."

"What is a 'Pocong?'" you may ask.
 It is a Javanese ghost that takes up
  occupancy in death shrouds.

Why is there a Javanese ghost
 infestation in a cemetery 4000 kilometers
  from Java, and -- as near as I can tell --
   with zero Javanese occupants?

The review does not say,
 but I love that someone panned 
  a cemetery based on the presence 
   of foreign ghosts

[and not because it is simultaneously
 phasmophobic and xenophobic.]

But because it shows an unbridled commitment 
 to one's imagination that is usually 
  only seen among children. 

Cemetery Math [Free Verse]

i walk through the graveyard,
subtracting birth from death dates
to determine age at death.

there’s a correlation between
speed of calculation &
the degree of tragedy.

the faster i can determine an age,
the more disconcerting the death:
like the girl — 1990 to 2008.

the 89 year old man who survived WWII
service in the Burmese jungle
doesn’t raise as many questions.

DAILY PHOTO: City of the Dead

Fields of the Dead [Free Verse]

It's a beautiful day
  in the graveyard.

Blue skies.

Cool, but not cold.
 The ideal temperature
   to be an overdressed military man.

Do ghosts amble among the stones
   on days like these?

I imagine most of these men died
   on quite different kinds of days:

Rainy, cold, muddy days.

Muggy, buggy, malarial days.

The kind of day that just won't end,
   but to fold into a sleepless night.

How many died, 
  not from spall or Minié balls,
    but because they just didn't have the will
      to drag themselves through another day?
        from exhaustion?
        from demoralization?

How many died under beautiful blue skies
   on an idyllic autumn day?

I don't know whether 
  there're good days to die,
    and even less whether 
      there're good days to be dead.

DAILY PHOTO: A Fine Fall Day in the Graveyard

Image

A Place of Death [Rubāʿī]

I walk past row on row of granite stones.
The grass is usually freshly mown,
but lately vegetation doesn't seem to grow,
and so, I kneel where seeds have been sown.

Graveyard Autumn [Haiku]

graves in autumn.
under red-leafed trees --
soon to be bare

DAILY PHOTO: Slavín

Taken in Bratislava in October of 2022